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How To Clean Up Your Business

 

Spruce up your work by chucking these eight productivity pitfalls. No Swiffer required.

 

Spring cleaning isn't just about clearing cabinet clutter and that space behind the toilet. It's also a good time to get rid of the tasks, people and situations that drain time, money and energy from your business--and you. Here are eight productivity pitfalls to cart to the curb.

1. Scattered day plans. 
Failure to plan their days is the No. 1 reason business owners waste time, energy and money, says New York City-based time-management expert Julie Morgenstern, author of  Never Check E-mail in the Morning: And Other Unexpected Strategies for Making Your Work Life Work. By not planning their days, they tend to become reactive and distracted, diminishing their productivity and the revenue they can generate. Although a daily to-do list is a start, Morgenstern recommends planning a three-day arc. By looking at a three-day period--and the meetings, deadlines and other demands on your time--you can make better decisions when surprises or emergencies arise. A three-day plan also gives you a clearer idea of when you can postpone activities without overbooking your future. Morgenstern advises spending at least a few minutes each day updating your three-day plan.

2. DIY syndrome. 
Morgenstern estimates that 75 to 80 percent of the small and midsize businesses she consults with waste

employee salaries, including their own, by not focusing each person's time on the optimal task for that person. Kristin Marquet, founder of communications firm Marquet Media in New York City, found this to be her experience. When she mapped out how she was spending her time, she found she was devoting about 10 hours each week to administrative tasks. At her hourly rate of $100, she estimates she lost approximately $10,000 by trying to do everything herself. After that realization, Marquet hired a bookkeeper, writer and website designer, who cost one-forth of the revenue she would have lost if she had handled the tasks herself. "Although you may feel as if you don't have time to train anyone, spending six hours

training someone on a two-hour-per-week task saves you nearly 100 hours per year," Morgenstern says.

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3. Disorganized direction. 
To make the delegation process more effective and less time-consuming, Bakersfield, Calif.-based business growth consultant Russell S. Allred, co-author of  Best Practices of High Performance Entrepreneurs, recommends creating task-related systems and processes. Write a list of steps for each task you perform regularly in your workplace and the best practices for completing those steps. Many people learn through observation, so ask your employees to shadow you to see how you perform the tasks, he says. For maximum efficiency, create process sheets for as many activities as possible, and try to train more than one employee in each. If the employee who usually handles the task calls in sick or leaves, someone else can fill in--or, at least, you'll have an easier time training a replacement.

4. Untamed distractions. 

A survey by home and office product company Brother International Corp. in April 2010 found that an estimated 38 hours per employee are lost looking for misplaced items in the office each year. And let's not think about how many hours are spent watching cute animal videos online. Many people have no idea how to manage the overwhelming amount of communication that comes their way on paper and electronically, says productivity consultant Kimberly Medlock, founder of Productive Matters in Olive Branch, Miss. To cut down on distractions and time-sucks, clean up your act, she says. Develop hard-copy and electronic filing systems to help locate important papers and information more quickly. Limit e-mail check-ins to certain times of the day so that you're not constantly interrupted by the "ping" of a new message, and unsubscribe from any recurring e-mail you don't need. If social media is a problem, look into tools such as Anti-Social or RescueTime, which put up a wall between your computer and distracting sites for blocks of time.

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