As a founder of a startup, chances are that you have one thing constantly going on in your mind: getting more work done. With the number of tasks and people involved, it's easy to feel overwhelmed and ineffective. You may find yourself wasting time because you have trouble prioritizing your tasks and effectively managing your team.
It's a vicious cycle that only gets worse until you recognize the fact that you're not alone and that there is a lot you can do to help your startup move in the right direction.
Here are five tips you can implement today to make your startup more productive:
Focus On One Thing at a Time
From hiring staff to refining systems and improving your product offering, being the founder of a startup isn't an easy task. Chances are that you have no spare time and are constantly riddled with tasks that need to be done. Some might say that this is why the word multitasking exists, but that's far from the ideal way of operating a startup. Multitasking is not sustainable and is definitely not the best way to approach all the tasks you need to take care of.
The reason multitasking exists is primarily due to poor planning and the lack of prioritization of the tasks at hand. Rather, what you want to do is focus on one task at a time. Check out your schedule, list all of your tasks in terms of priority, and start tackling them one after the other.
This way, this particular task will have your undivided attention until it's done. Working on one task at a time allows you to not only complete it quicker but also up to a better standard as you're not constantly distracted by all the other tasks you need to do.
Reduce the Number and Length of Meetings
Meetings can be a huge time sink for yourself and your team. Though they are inevitable and need to happen, you should reduce to having them only when absolutely necessary. This will not only save you and your team countless hours but also ensure that each meeting has a clear goal and purpose.
It is recommended that meetings should last no more than 30 minutes at a time. And the only exception to that would be if the meeting is truly important and can severely impact the future of the company.
Hire, Delegate, and Trust
It's normal for founders to want to have their say and know everything that is going on. And it makes perfect sense. Which founder wouldn't want to know what's going on in the business at all times? That is, however, a major problem. As a founder, you need to know your role. You have the responsibility of working on the business and not within it - for the most part.
Sim Aulakh, founder of EstablishCred, a boutique PR firm helping startups position their brands with authority and credibility states, "Don’t be a bottleneck. If a matter is not a decision for you, delegate it. Force responsibility down and out. Find problem areas, add structure, and delegate. The pressure is to do the reverse. Resist it.”
Your responsibilities lie around making those big decisions and moving the needle while all of your employees underneath you will be doing all the work that keeps the business going.
To achieve that, you must hire the right people, delegate the work to them, and trust your employees that they are capable of doing the work at hand up to standard.
Focus More - Work Less
This productivity hack can come off as surprising advice, but many founders find themselves working far too much. And the problem isn't the hard work but rather the speed at which the work is being done. We can all agree that a task that takes two hours can easily be done in one hour provided you are laser-focused and have zero distractions around you.
If we scale this scenario to a whole day, what will take you 8 hours of work can be done in four, leaving the remainder of the day to lead your team forward and help them out with anything they might need from you.
As a founder of a startup, it's also crucial that you take some time off each day to recharge your batteries and get ready for the next day.
Track Your Time
It’s no secret that many businesses have been struggling with employee productivity in recent years and looking for some great options to monitor employee productivity.
But can it be done effectively with time-tracking software? Do employee time tracking apps help to boost employee productivity? These are some questions that businesspeople ask to increase the employees’ productivity.
To put it simply, time-tracking software is a must-have for any company that can be used to increase efficiency and productivity while decreasing costs.
The right time-tracking software can be instrumental in helping you understand how your employees are spending their days. For both individuals and business owners, the possibilities for using this type of workforce management system to improve workflow is endless.
From scheduling meetings more efficiently to finding ways to cut down on wasted time, there’s a lot that good time-tracking software can do for you.
As the founder of a startup, you simply have to know and optimize how the time is allocated and spent down to every minute. And it goes without saying that this is inherently true for any business that is looking to refine its efforts with the goal of being more efficient and productive.