Whether you’re a self employed freelancer, a subcontractor working remotely, or the CEO of your very own thriving enterprise, you likely wage a constant battle for productivity. The digital era has been kind to you, giving you an opportunity to empower yourself by shrugging off the yoke of your old job and making a living doing something that you’re truly passionate about… But those very same opportunities that empowered you also empowered legions of competitors who would happily take the customers, clients and capital that are your livelihood if you give them the opportunity. As such, we all face a daily struggle to remain as productive and time efficient as possible… And yet we can find ourselves getting in the way of our own productivity and undermining our own not inconsiderable efforts.
If you’re concerned about your productivity or want to ensure that your operation is running as efficiently as possible, it behoves you to ask yourself some of these searching questions. The answers may be difficult but they will most certainly guide you to bettering your business…
Have you had the same IT infrastructure for years?
The right tool to get the job done today may not be the best tool for the job tomorrow. And when all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. If you run a business, your IT infrastructure should be in a near constant state of evolution. It should be as intuitive as possible to allow new employees to get productive quickly and it should be agile enough to pre-empt the needs of tomorrow as well as today. It should be scalable to grow with your business and meet its changing needs. This can be tricky to achieve on your own which is why outsourcing your IT to a company like www.charlesit.com is advisable especially to nascent startups. Productivity is so much easier to maintain with the right tools.
Do you lie to yourself daily about your personal productivity?
It’s easy to delude yourself when you run your own business. Let’s face it, your employees know which side their bread’s buttered on so they’re unlikely to take you to task on behaviors that might be counterproductive or even self delusional. Answer yourself honestly… Do you tell yourself little lies about your productivity. Do you tell yourself that tweeting, sending emails or checking Facebook for mentions is work? Do you tell yourself that you’re a great multitasker,no matter how much the evidence shows us that multitaskers are never as productive as single taskers?
Only by shaking off these comfortable lies can we truly harness our productivity.
Is every deadline a race to the finish?
Deadlines, whether self-imposed or mandated by clients are an important part of the structure by which freelancers and small businesses live. But if every deadline is a race for the finish in which the end result just barely scrapes in on time, this can point to systemic flaws in your processes.
If you don’t take steps now to revisit your processes and identify ways to make them more efficient, you’ll always keep feeling the gut punch of anxiety that comes with every looming deadline.
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Expansion is the goal for business owners. If they could, they’d open a store in the Amazon Rainforest to boost sales and maximize profits. Growth doesn’t come easily. Out of every ten startups which have dreams of being the next big thing, only two of them stay open. Yep, 80% of small businesses fail at some point. To make $1 billion, you have to think and act like the men and women who have come before. And, who better to look to than the wealthiest man on the planet, Jeff Bezos?
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