Most days you feel like you're a frantic squirrel darting across a busy highway. As a small business owner, there's too much to do and not enough time to do it. At least that's how it feels. But imagine what it would feel like to feel calm and collected in your business each day. It's easier to do than you think.
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Working more effectively will help you get more done in your business. That's the truth. Even being a little more organized can take dampen down the chaos that you feel every day.
Picture it:
- A clear desktop
- Administrative tasks are always done on time
- Your filing system is 100% in order
- Processes have been created for every repeatable task and
- Time is spent on what you know is important to your success instead of wasted on what doesn't matter
What would this mean for your business, your productivity, and your peace of mind?
Organization Tips for Business Owners that Work
Let's explore five organization tips for business owners that will genuinely benefit you by saving you time, eliminating wasted effort, and reducing stress so you spend more time growing your business.
1. Create a Super-Simple Filing System that You’ll ACTUALLY Use
The first organizational tip for business owners is to create a filing system to deal with your paper clutter.
While going digital helps to alleviate most of the physical documents in your life, some paperwork is a necessary evil when you own a business. But many business owners get overwhelmed thinking they need to have some complicated, elaborate document management system.
In reality, the simpler and more accessible your filing system is, the more likely you will be to use and maintain it.
The easiest and most effective system I’ve found is to have a simple file box in a central location — like right under or beside your desk. As you complete paperwork, you can immediately file it away without even standing up.
And then, once a week or once a month, you can quickly transfer your files to your filing cabinet. The sophistication is in the simplicity.
2. Use a Project Management Tool to Keep Your Tasks Running Smoothly
Whether you have a team or not, project management software like Trello or Asana can really help. Definitely an organization tip for business owners that you could start doing even in the early stages of your business.
Solos and teams can get more organized using one of these free tools. Investing a little bit of time to learn a tool like this will save you loads of time in the long run. Especially on repeatable tasks.
Cloud-based tools like these will help you plan, monitor, and streamline every task within your business. Anything from marketing to administrative tasks to sales can be managed so you always know exactly WHAT needs to happen, and WHEN.
Tools like these are also great for storing any ideas you wish to capture as well. This means you won't waste time searching through notebooks or scraps of paper. Or worse! You forget the idea altogether.
3. Keep Your Email Inbox at Zero
Cluttered inbox = cluttered mind. Is this true for you too?
Having reams of unread emails — or emails you need to sift through and respond to — can waste time and lead to important things falling through the cracks.
Having reams of unread emails – or emails you need to sift through and respond to – can waste time and lead to important things falling through the cracks.Click To TweetInstead, commit to always keeping your inbox at zero. This isn’t as hard as it sounds. However, you do need to have a few things in place for this to work.
- Set aside certain times during the day to read, respond to, and/or file away all emails. I recommend scheduling three times during the day to check email. Then, just focus on dealing with your email during those spots.
- Organize your emails into files and folders. Be as specific as possible when naming your folders. Spending an extra minute organizing and filing your emails will save you tons of time and frustration later when you need them.
- Create “rules” to automatically file your emails. All major email providers let you set up rules or filters to automatically send certain emails to specific folders. For instance, set up a rule to send all invoices to your Accounts Payable file so you can deal with them all at once when you have time.
4. Batch Create and Schedule Your Social Media Content Ahead of Time
A great organization tip for business owners is to batch create and schedule your social media content.
Yes. I know you've heard this one before. I'm including it because it works!
A great social media strategy requires a plan. Simply posting to Instagram or Facebook whenever the mood strikes is not an orderly strategy. Have your posts planned and scheduled for optimal efficiency, consistency, and results. This is a more efficient and organized way to deal with your content.
A great social media plan requires a plan. This means that rather than simply posting to Instagram or Facebook whenever the mood strikes, you have your posts planned and scheduled for optimal efficiency, consistency, and results.Click To TweetAn easy way to do this is by using a simple content calendar. Hubspot has an awesome social media content calendar template you can download for free. This will help you organize your content ideas, which makes executing much easier as well.
To actually schedule your social media content, you’ll need a tool that lets you manage and plan out all your posts. There are lots of tools to help you do this like Hootsuite, Buffer and Later. We actually use Later to plan and schedule all of our content on Instagram.
5. Organize Your Finances with Simple Accounting Software
Invoices, payments, time-tracking, payroll can quickly become overwhelming without the right system in place.
There are a ton of free or low-cost tools out there to help organize your business finances – from tracking expenses to creating invoices to setting up recurring payments.
Some inexpensive, easy-to-use tools you can check out include Wave (pictured above), FreshBooks, and Due.com.
You’ll be amazed at how using the right accounting software saves you time, keeps you organized, and ensures bills and payments never fall through the cracks again.
You’ll be amazed at how using the right accounting software saves you time, keeps you organized, and ensures bills and payments never fall through the cracks again!Click To TweetBeing Organized Will Help You Feel Less Stressed
It's easy to get overwhelmed by all the tasks, projects, and paperwork required to run your business. But it doesn't need to be that way.
Some simple organization tips for business owners like the ones above can keep you organized and on-task. Implementing organizational systems will get you more time and energy to work on revenue-generating tasks that will actually grow your business, too.
Which of the organization tips above are you going to try this week? Let me know in the comments below.
UPDATED on August 8, 2022
