When you’re a small business owner, your time is valuable – and extremely limited! The same goes for your team. Employees wear multiple hats, and their list of to do’s likely grows by the minute.

Too bad you can’t grow more time to get everything done.

Or can you?

There are still only 24 hours in a day – but with these productivity hacks, your small business can make huge gains in speed and efficiency, and get more out of every minute of the work day:

Empower Team Members

Micromanagement is a notorious productivity killer. Make sure your employees have the tools, training, guidelines, resources, autonomy and authority to accomplish their work free from micromanagement – then let go of the reins! When you trust and equip your employees to do a great job for you, their motivation and performance will soar.

Conquer Your Inbox (And Teach Your Team to do the Same)

Would you believe people spend an average of 13 hours per workweek reading, deleting, sorting and sending emails? Who has time for that? In this post, we share practical tips to stop the flood of unwanted emails, batch your email-checking, and free up more time for meaningful work.

Remember Parkinson’s Law

According to this law, work expands to fill the time available for its completion. If you give someone an hour to complete a task, they’ll get it done in an hour. And if you give them an hour and a half, they’ll probably take the full hour and a half to complete the exact same task.

The point is, the length of time it takes to complete a task is largely a matter of perception. So, when it makes sense, put time constraints on daily tasks. In this post, we share specific tips for adding structure to your small business to dramatically improve productivity.

Use the Right Apps

Without the right tech, your small team can easily get distracted, disorganized and overwhelmed. Here are a few apps to help you and your employees work smarter – and more productively:

• Asana. This online hub provides a central dashboard, allowing team collaborators to communicate and check on projects to cut down on calls and emails.
• Toggl, Timecamp and Hours. If you bill work hourly, these apps all make it effortless to track billables.
• Nimble. This popular CRM app allows you to organize contacts. Once you’ve entered someone’s email, the system is smart enough to recognize social media handles, segment lists, set follow-up reminders and more.
• Square. This app uses a credit card scanner that plugs directly into your smartphone or tablet – allowing you to take a credit card payment anywhere, without a cash register.
• Evernote. Organize everything you write – from simple notes to robust reports – in one place to facilitate sharing across small teams and devices.

Read Up!

We’ve published a ton of great content to help small employers like you improve productivity. Here are a few to check out, and be sure to browse our archives for more useful ideas:

Supercharge the Efficiency of Your Small Team

Driving Team Productivity Starts with the Right Software

Struggling to Get it All Done?

When you need extra help to hit deadlines, tackle special projects or free up more of your time for high-priority work, Exact Staff is here for you. We can’t grow time, but our national staffing and placement services will help you get more done, every day.

How can we be of assistance? Contact a staffing expert at your local Exact Staff office today.