Launching a business can sometimes be challenging because you have to make vital decisions. Thus, it’s hardly a surprise that one of the mistakes many startups commit is miscalculating the time they’ll need to finish a specific task. And this can hurt a company’s productivity. In this post, we provide five startup mistakes to avoid in time management.
How Does A Startup Know It’s Wasting Its Time?
If a business doesn’t move with lightning speed in today’s world, it’s most likely to struggle. Nevertheless, to stand a chance against the competition, a startup must identify ways it’s misusing time or resources at its disposal. The paragraphs below show two ways business owners can waste time and may not even be aware of it.
- Taking Long To Make Decisions: According to a famous quote, “Money likes speed.” Hence, for a business startup to make more money, there are times when it needs to act fast. Sometimes business executives may have a week to make a vital decision, and other times they could only have a few hours to decide. The point is delaying to be decisive is one way a business could waste time.
- Focusing On Perfectionism: Ultimately, perfectionism is another form of procrastination that keeps many businesses from achieving their goals. Because at the end of the day, procrastinating supports entrepreneurs from acting, and often, they don’t have much time to act. This is another way a business startup can waste time without knowing it.
Additionally, it’s a good thing we now have reliable and affordable tools like the Monitask employee time monitoring software. This software enables startups to manage their business time efficiently. Click here to sign up quickly!
Startup Mistakes In Time Management
Entrepreneurs will scale their business quickly if they avoid making mistakes that could cost their time. So here are five mistakes many startups make in time management:
#1. Not Scheduling or Automating
Time management is about utilizing time wisely and effectively to get the results you want. When you do everything yourself, you find it harder to manage time and make progress. For this reason, a business startup should consider using online tools to automate and schedule some tasks. Or better still, outsource some tasks to a virtual assistant. Moreover, hiring a virtual assistant can save your startup time and energy.
#2. Procrastinating
Procrastination is one of the typical startup mistakes in time management. It involves putting a hold on a substantial project. Furthermore, procrastination is not only draining, but it’s also a colossal waste of time. It’s worrisome that some new businesses delay tackling their toughest or most important projects. And these tasks could pile up and later cause a big problem for the organization.
#3. Taking On Too Much
Are you an entrepreneur who finds it hard to say “no” to people? Or you prefer doing everything yourself because you don’t trust others enough? If your answer is “yes,” then you probably have many tasks on your plates. Not only will this cost you time, but it will also lead to a low turnout, poor performance, and low productivity in your new business venture.
#4. Jumping Into Build Mode
There’s so much courage in this decision that it’s worth emulating. However, it’s one of the startups’ mistakes that can burn you out and waste time. Many new products flop because there’s no ready market for them. So, while it seems like a brave decision to jump in to build mode, there’s a great chance that such a venture could fail.
So a startup shouldn’t adopt the “build, and they will come strategy.” Instead, a business should sell services or products people want. That’s to say, the product or service must already have a market.
#5. Expanding Too Soon
A startup can make quick decisions because there’s no bureaucracy. Expanding the team too soon will slow down the decision-making process and its flexibility. The high level of energy a new venture needs doesn’t allow for things like this to happen. A startup should be lean as possible until they have a clear plan.
How Does A Startup Avoid Wasting Time?
There’s a great chance your business startup will avoid time management mistakes if you stick to the following recommendation below:
● Prioritize Better
A company should simplify everything it has to do to about three or four manageable items. Arranging tasks in order of priority from the most important to the least important will help your employees focus on the essential things. By doing this, your business will eradicate non-important time-wasting activities.
● Fix A Time For Each Task
Your employees could do a task for the whole day if you don’t allocate time to it. Allow time duration for each task arranged to determine how long they will do it. This keeps your workers on track and deters them from wasting too much time on a job.
● Take A Break Often
“All work and no play make Jack a dull” boy. This is a saying that never goes out of style. If you stay on a task for too long, you might lose focus and burn out. So, break up activities with short break periods. Doing this can refuel or refresh you and every member of your organization. Then, you can get back to what you’re doing with renewed energy, new ideas and use your time better.
● Remove Distractions
Distractions are everywhere, but you must not let them get to your business team. Things will take too long because you allow your employees to get distracted. Encourage your workers to take a break off from social media and put their phones on vibration, so they don’t get distracted every time a new message or email lands in their inbox. Keep at it until they complete all tasks for the day.
● Perform A Time Audit
Every business does an accounting audit and reviews at intervals to keep track of their finance. In like manner, please keep track of how your employees spend their time each day with timers and jot down the results. For several days, you will get a concrete picture of how they spend their time. More so, you may be surprised at where they are wasting time or how well they’re using it.
● Stop Multitasking
Contrary to popular belief, multitasking doesn’t make you more productive. Instead, it disturbs your brain, ruins your focus and also leads to poor time management. Furthermore, multi-tasking will deter you from getting tasks done efficiently. So it’s better to take it one step at a time.
● Be Organized
Arrange your desk and your work area so that everything is in the right place- where you need it. This helps to reduce the time spent searching for things and doing the on-spot organizing. Also, it will motivate you mentally to work. Set aside a little time at your convenience to clean up, arrange, and set things in order.
Wrapping up
In a bid to facilitate business growth and generate revenue as quickly as possible, many business owners fail to recognize the five startup mistakes mentioned in this post. And this can hurt their businesses. But then, these startups can identify these time management mistakes and learn how to correct them. This will help them manage their time effectively.
Lastly, we recommend business owners use Monitask to avoid poor time management. This online tool can also help your employees become less stressed and more productive. Click here to sign up now!
