Businesses of all shapes and sizes are (rightly) obsessed with the idea of saving money. Entrepreneurs in all sorts of fields are constantly striving for the secret formula that will enable them to cut down their overhead costs without compromising their productivity. Yet, while saving money is undoubtedly important (provided that you’re still investing in the areas that will facilitate growth), it’s not the be all and end all. Money, after all, is not your business’ most important resource… Your most important resource is time. And if you run your own business, chances are you’re giving away far too much of it, far too freely.
Time is, arguably, the most finite resource on the planet. It’s the one thing that they’re not making any more of. Once a second is gone it cannot be reused, repurposed or recycled. It can’t be captured, reproduced or multiplied. Once it’s gone, it’s gone and you’ll never get it back. Here we’ll look at some ways in which entrepreneurs should reevaluate their attitude to time and what they can do to help cultivate this most finite of resources.
Time is money, as they say…
It’s an old adage but one that becomes far more truthful with a slight tweak… Time is worth money! Yet the entrepreneurs that are extremely fastidious with their money give so much of their time away for free. They don’t quantify time in the way that they quantify money, not do they keep track of it with the same watchful precision. If these entrepreneurs are not careful, they risk losing their money in proportion to their time.
Why you’re wasting time without wasting time
When it comes to wasting time many people think of wasting away the day playing solitaire on their computers, shopping online or ambling through their social media feed when they should be working, but very few examples of wasting time in the workplace are this on the nose. Ultimately, a failure to reflect on yourself and your business and its practices can be every bit as damaging as any of the above activities. If you don’t take a long hard look at your processes and practices you could end up like Nero playing the fiddle (or scrolling through Facebook) as Rome (or your business) burns (or goes into liquidation).
Being more time efficient
Being more time efficient rarely requires a complete overhaul of your operational processes. In most cases, it’s merely a case of being more fastidious with the time you have and evaluating your processes to be sure that they’re as time (and labour) efficient as possible. Though you may wish to outsource some of your operations to save time, you can save more money in the long run to outsourcing your IT needs to an external provider like https://www.cccit.co.uk/, some other simple solutions include;
- Delegate more. It empowers your employees and frees up your time.
- Have a gatekeeper to screen your incoming calls.
- Dedicate a specific period in the day to answering your emails.
- Create (and stick to) agendas for every meeting to ensure that they stay on topic.
- Manage your schedule stringently and ensure that you allot specific times for basic operational tasks.
