Business Owners Save Time
Small and medium-sized business owners have a lot on their plates, making it important for them to save time whenever possible. Communications solutions like a virtual PBX system from AccessDirect play a significant part in using time most effectively. In a recent Small Business Trends article, contributor Annie Pilon offered many time saving tips.
Time Saving Tips
Pilon shared 50 tips that can help small business owners save time. Here are some time saving tips for small businesses that stood out:
- Prioritize by urgency and importance: A good plan is essential to any business decision. Without a plan, things can easily fall apart. After a plan is in place, set priorities in order to avoid wasting any unnecessary time. After setting a list of tasks, SMB owners can then prioritize tasks twice – once according to importance and a second time according to urgency level.
- Set deadlines, track your time and set reminders: As Pilon detailed, setting deadlines for certain projects and then taking that one step further by telling others about those deadlines can provide proper motivation to make sure things are done on time. When setting deadlines, remain realistic and understand both limitations and abilities. Telling others about deadlines is one excellent way to be held accountable. As work on the project progresses, keeping an eye on the timeline is usually a good idea. Mobile devices are especially ideal for setting reminders and alarms.
- Schedule breaks, time for email and social media: Business is not as simple as it once was. Now, businesses often need to rely on multiple communication modes to interact with customers and clients. In order to stay on top of all tasks, Pilon recommended setting specific time aside to answer email messages and engage on social media platforms. With convenient advanced features of AccessDirect’s virtual phone systems, users can take advantage of fax-to-email and voice-to-email functionality to streamline many different channels into an end user’s inbox, which can add up to many saved minutes.
- Use email filters and archives: Pilon stressed how using email filters and archives can be a huge time-saver, as minutes and hours can be saved that would otherwise be wasted trying to hunt down a particular message.
- Schedule smarter meetings: While Pilon noted that meetings can be essential, they need to be scheduled and managed intelligently. This means that business decision makers should not schedule many frequent meetings or allow them to go on too long. Video or voice conferencing is also another solution that can be leveraged to cut down any time wasted on travel.
Another article in The Wall Street Journal outlined how cloud resources in particular can save time for SMBs.
“Cloud technologies should provide businesses with the flexibility to plan for continued growth,” said Brent Codd, executive vice president and CRO at Cbeyond, according to the newspaper. “Taking a few basic steps now to eliminate hurdles that impede the efficiency of the cloud will enable teams to better assign IT resources and reach their goals faster.”
Check out more ways to save time at work from AccessDirect on our website or give us a call today!
