Being Efficient In Your Daily Work

When you are the business owner of a budding enterprise, you will realize that running the actual business is a whole different animal, coming with its own idiosyncrasies. And as the business starts to grow, you will find a large portion of your time and energy consumed by the daily tasks that come with the job.

As owner, you are a valuable resource to your business and thus it is absolutely crucial that your efforts are properly utilized on the things that matter. I like to think of it as “min/max”-ing your time and energy so that you minimize the time spent on daily chores – the small details, while maximizing the time and head space to give calls and devise strategies that will decide the direction of your business.

Unless you have the minute details of your routine worked out, you can’t focus on the big picture. The idea is to find better ways of doing the things that you have got to take care of throughout the day. So here are a few (tips) that may help you bring more efficiency to your routine.

Start recording your ideas

I think everyone among us has been through the scenario of coming up with a fantastic idea, or what seemed like it, only to lose it in the depths of your brain in the span of a few hours. Inspiration can hit you at the oddest of times – be it getting ready for work, waiting for the lift or even moments before you fall asleep. And it is quite frustrating to have a great idea only to lose it because you weren’t prepared.

James Altucher says that one must train their mind to think up ideas daily, be it good or bad.

And so, one of the things I’ve developed a habit of doing is keeping something with me at all times to record that idea when it finally lands. Your phone, a laptop or even your notebook can come in handy when you need to jot down something quick.

Recording whatever is going through your mind when you have the idea is a great way to remember the smallest of details about the idea so that I can think about it later on. Sometimes it’s the most mundane of details which give way to a good idea. Listening to the recording helps me get into the mindset of when I had the idea, so that I can iron out the idea further at a later date and nothing is forgotten. Even if the idea itself isn’t all that good, it can lead the way to something really special.

The habit of capturing your thoughts whenever you feel like you have stumbled onto something will not only save you a ton of time in the long run, it will also give you an edge creatively as you’ll be more conscious of the entire process of thinking up ideas. So do not hesitate to record these moments - they may be the fuel for your inspiration when you’re up against a wall.

Keep your keys at a designated location

Decision fatigue is a real thing.

It is said that a person can only take a certain number of decisions per day. Make your brain weigh too many options in a day and it will start taking shortcuts instead – leading to rash decisions and sometimes, no decisions at all.

So you definitely do not want to spend one or more of those decisions on the location of your keys every day. Every single one of us has lost their keys at least once in their life or has at least wasted time searching for them. Misplacing your keys is such a trivial problem – we do not think much of it until it happens and tend to forget about it once the problem is resolved. But these things add up gradually and you definitely do not want to spend any amount of time thinking about where you left your keys this morning.

Leaving them in random places is very much like wanting a wrench to be hurled at your timings – nobody really accounts for time wasted finding keys in their daily schedule.

One of the things I’ve learned to do over the years is to have a designated spot where I place my keys every single time. Every single morning when I walk into the office, my keys go onto the same shelf. This not only makes it much more convenient to access but it is also one less decision to worry about. Decide on a place that’s easy to reach and secure enough so that you don’t have to worry about it for the rest of the day and you know exactly where to look when you need them. Consistency is key here – whatever location you choose is fine, as long as you stick to it.

Having your own Marketing Swipe File at hand

A really great idea to help you streamline and save time, especially when you are marketing, is to keep a copy of marketing materials, such as emails, that you consider good. They can be a video you enjoyed or an email that struck you as memorable – anything that can later be used as inspiration.

What I like to do is gather up the things that I like and create what is called a swipe file. You can store this in a virtual box like a cloud folder or even in a physical box close to you. And whenever you run into a wall doing your own marketing, you can just pull the swipe file out of the “box” and see if there’s anything that suits the project you are currently working on.

By no means should you duplicate the approach entirely, but they should give you inspiration and some great ideas to model your own marketing after. Sometimes it’s easier to improve on something already there instead of starting from scratch and the Swipe File helps you greatly in this regard. They can give you a place to start and by adding your own ideas to the mix you can tailor the whole thing to your needs.

By doing this habitually over time, you will be able to develop a really great source of inspiration for your own marketing when you start your business and to help push your business to the next level.