Running a small business is not for the faint of heart. It’s a seriously demanding endeavor that requires time, dedication, hard work, and a willingness to continue learning and improving both yourself and your business. 

The broad range of responsibilities a business owner is tasked with can be daunting: marketing, sales, managing finances, ensuring customer satisfaction…and that’s not even considering the product itself. While online MBA programs accredited teach students all the technical skills and knowledge required of the business world, there are still habits, like scheduling and sticking to a routine, that are up to the individual to master. 

By implementing a few simple best practices, you can improve your efficiency, ensure you fulfill all of your responsibilities, and hopefully reclaim a little time for yourself!

1. Set a Schedule (Stick To It!)

One of the strange comforts of a regular 9-to-5 job is the certainty and predictability imposed by working regular business hours. As a business owner, things don’t quite work that way: you’re the backstop of your business, and you need to be available whenever your business needs you. This lack of structure can lead to feeling like you’re always just behind schedule or that you can’t relax because there’s always something you could be doing. That’s a great way to head straight down the path to burnout.

Start by identifying the times and days where you’re at your best. If you’re a morning person who gets a lot done before lunch, set that time aside for your most demanding or highest priority work. Structuring your schedule to align with your natural bodily rhythms and sleep schedule is a great trick to help you prioritize your work and maximize your productivity during your peak working hours.

Imposing a clear and consistent schedule for everyday tasks is a great next step. This helps you establish a baseline and ensures the little things don’t pile up. Start by figuring out what your consistent tasks are for each day, week, month, and year and scheduling them. Stick to this schedule religiously. It also helps to pack these regular, predictable tasks into parts of your schedule where you’re not likely to be interrupted.

2. Delegate Work Effectively

Nothing is more tempting as a small business owner than to try to do everything yourself. When your life’s work is riding on every detail being worked out perfectly, allowing someone else to take responsibility for business-critical tasks can be downright terrifying. If your business is to grow, this is a feeling you’re going to get used to. Trying to handle everything on your own simply isn’t feasible.

The first step in reducing your workload without incurring intolerable risk is to identify the tasks that don’t actually require your direct attention or specific expertise. Bookkeeping, placing orders for products, managing your schedule - these are all things that might benefit from your personal touch or be executed more effectively by you than someone else, but they’re ultimately not as high a priority as making the big decisions that require your attention.

For tasks you do offload, it’s important to make your expectations clear. Implementing a quality management system can offer both you and whoever takes over these duties a certain peace of mind: the person taking over your duties will know what needs to be done and how to do it best, and you will know that the task is being done properly and to your expectations. It’s also important that the person you’re delegating to is empowered and that anyone they might need to interact with to fulfill that duty is aware that they have the authority to make decisions about that task and execute them.

3. Keep Detailed, Organized Records

Good recordkeeping is crucial for any business owner and can save you a lot of time down the road. It’s easy to let the little things fall by the wayside, but you will pay for it in the long run.

Create both digital and physical filing systems that those you work with are aware of and, when appropriate, have access to. Ensure that financial records, information about your products and clients, and any vital legal or certification documents are always accessible to you and those who might need to use them. Having a cloud backup of digital records is a great idea, too.

4. Automate Everything You Can

There are endless tools available for automating simple tasks these days. Anything from writing standard emails and sending invoices to scheduling appointments and keeping company ledgers and bank accounts reconciled can all be handled by modern software. If you find yourself spending too much time on the computer tasks that are painfully repetitive and don’t require much thought or creativity, it’s probably time to outsource them to the computer - you’d be surprised what you can find out there.