Between work, family, fun in the sun, and everything else on your plate, you might find your task list overflowing this time of year. We’ve got some tips to help you power through this busy summer season!
Outsource
Find tools that help you work smarter, better, and more efficiently. Traktivity is one of these tools, but your outsourcing doesn’t have to be limited just to your business. Bring in a babysitter one day a week, pay an entrepreneurial teen to weed your garden, or make dinner easy with an extra take-out night or meal subscription plan. Find a task that you can delegate or put on pause for the next few weeks.
Find Your Most Productive Channel
We’re not telling you to ignore your email -- but take some time to notice where most of your communications take place, and prioritize that channel for this season.
Always texting? Your phone gets your best attention. Facebook Messenger is your favorite space? Keep it open during your work hours.
You can designate a daily (or even weekly!) time to check your other channels, and know that you're attending to the most urgent and most important messages in a timely manner.
Bonus tip - set up an auto-responder or update your voicemail to redirect urgent messages to your priority channel. Include a note on when they can expect a response if it's not an urgent message - and then stick to your schedule!
Make It Simpler
Do you find yourself replying with the same information or creating similar messages over and over again? It’s time to script it. Using Traktivity’s scripts tool, or in your own inbox, save drafts of frequent messages so that you don’t have to recreate the wheel each time you're contacting a certain type of prospect. Once you’ve popped your draft copy into your new message, you can tweak it and make any minor changes for the person you’re actually connecting with. They'll never know the difference, and over days, weeks, and months, this saved time will really add up!
Rethink Your Meetings
If you’re having regular meetings for work, take a moment to consider why. What are you achieving? Are the meetings at the right frequency? Are they the right duration? How much time does it take you to prepare? Are the other participants coming prepared to discuss the agenda? (You do have an agenda, don’t you?) If you’re finding yourself stretched for time, a meeting audit can be an easy way to find some dead space that you can bring back to life for another purpose!
Identify Your Quick Wins
You can get more than you realize done in small chunks of time. Instead of wasting the 15 minutes between swim practice and the next thing on your calendar, plan ahead and develop a list of little tasks you can complete in 5, 10, or 15 minutes. A few suggestions? Check voicemail, answer two emails, log a reachout, schedule a social post. We bet you can come up with at least a few more!
Set A Deadline
Deadlines have a way of helping us get things done. A deadline will narrow your focus, let you release your inner perfectionist, and check something off your list so you can move onto the next thing.
The best thing about deadlines is that you can create them anytime you want! Don't just think of deadlines for the big projects, but apply them whenever you can. Set yourself a time limit for creating ads for an upcoming event, or writing a blog post, or planning for a conference call. Don't cut corners - but be smart with your time and respect it as a critical resource.
What are your best tips for managing a busy schedule and boosting productivity? Share them with your fellow TRAKstars by tagging your posts with #TRAKstar and @traktivity!
Get started with Traktivity today and make managing your business simpler!
