How to Reduce Busy Work as a Small Business Owner

Feeling frazzled? Do you find yourself getting up early,
working late, and still not getting it all done? If this is you, like many
small business owners you may be stretching yourself too thin.

As a small business owner, you have a lot to do. If you
don’t manage your busy work, your workload can seem impossible.

In this tutorial we’ll take a closer look at busy work.
We’ll also show you five steps to help you manage even your most mundane tasks
and reclaim some of that lost time.

What Is Busy Work?

Is busy work holding you back? Many small business owners
are burdened by busy work, but don’t even realize it. That’s because busy work
feels just as important as other work, but it doesn’t have the same impact on
your business.

Busy work can be business tasks that need to get done, but
don’t contribute to the bottom line. Examples of this include accounting and
tax tasks, answering emails, website maintenance, clerical tasks, and other
routine tasks. It isn’t that those tasks aren’t important, it’s just that your
business might be better off if they were handled differently.

Busy work can also be useless tasks that feel meaningful,
but contribute nothing at all to your business. Examples of this might be
redecorating your office or taking classes, but never applying what you learn. Even tasks like promoting your business through
social media or checking your email inbox can be busy work if done excessively.

Eliminating busy work starts at the top. If you, as a small
business owner, are wasting a lot of time with busy work, then chances are good that
any employees you have are also wasting time. 

You can improve your approach though. Here are some key steps to take back your time and reduce your busy work.

Step 1: Know How You Spend Your Time

The key to finding out how to reduce busy work is to find
out how much time you’re really spending on it. Most of us don’t do that. The
last thing we want to make time to do when we’re busy is track our time.

Yet tracking how you use your time is the start to reducing
busy work. Without tracking your time, you can’t be sure where you are being
ineffective.

When tracking your time, be detailed. Include everything you
do in a day, no matter how insignificant it seems. For better results, track
your time over several days instead of just a single day. Also, be honest. If
you spend two hours a day checking Facebook or an hour watching YouTube videos,
record that activity.

For example, imagine you’re a web developer. After tracking
your time for a few days, you discover that besides coding, testing,
brainstorming and maintenance tasks, you also spend time on the following busy
work tasks:

• Checking email, average time spent: ten minutes
  per hour


• Administrative tasks, average time spent: an
  hour per day


• Watching YouTube videos, average time spent: a
  half hour per day


• Leaving your desk to get a snack (not a
  mealtime), average time spent: half hour per day

Your time tracking also shows that you spend an hour
and a half each week meeting with your team members. You hold the meetings
regularly, even if no one has questions and there are no problems. Unnecessary meetings are common time waster,
by the way. Statistics
from Atlassian, show that half of all meetings are a waste of time.

When you add this time up, you find you have only an
average of about five hours of productive time each day. I bet that’s a lot
less productive time than you thought you’d find. You need to make the most of it.

The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, infers
that you’ll find that a small number of tasks are wasting the majority of your
time. Reduce the time you spend on those tasks, and you’ll reduce busy work.

To learn more about Pareto Principle and how to perform a
Pareto Analysis, refer to our Tuts+ tutorial on the subject:

• 
  Pareto Analysis
  
  
  Solve 80% of Your Problems With Pareto Analysis
  
  
  Lisa Jo Rudy

Learning how you are spending your time
is an important part of reducing busy work. If you have employees, have them also
track their time to find out how they are spending it. You can use time tracking software like Harvest to assist you.

If you know how you spend your time, you’re ready for the
next step.

Step 2: Plan Your Time

Once you know how you are spending your time, you can start
to plan to use that time more effectively. Planning your time starts with
prioritization.

Here are three questions to ask about each task you
identify:

1. How much time did I spend on this task during
   working hours?


2. What, if anything, does this task contribute to
   my business?


3. Can I delegate this task or reschedule if for
   personal time?

These questions will help you prioritize your tasks and set
planning goals.

If you start each day without a goal, it’s easy to find
yourself waffling and wasting time. Instead, use a calendar or planner to schedule your
time more effectively. Here’s a guide on how to use a printable paper
planner, if you're not keen on using a digital calendar. 

As a more specific example of how prioritization and
planning can help reduce busywork, let’s take a closer look at the five busy
work time wasters identified in the example in Step 1. Here’s how you could
address each time waster:

1. 
   Checking Email.
   If you’re spending a lot of time checking email each day, you’re not alone.
   According to a study from Reuters, many
   workers spend up to 6.3 hours a day checking email. To reduce this busy
   work, try limiting yourself to checking your inbox three times a day: when you
   start work, before lunch, and before the end of your work day.


2. 
   Administrative Tasks. Most administrative tasks really do need to get done, but are you
   the best person to do them? Often, the answer is no. We’ll talk more about task
   delegation in a later step. If there are a few administrative tasks that only
   you can handle, consider handling them all at once. Set aside a few hours each
   week for administration.


3. 
   Watching
   YouTube Videos. Unless these videos are work-related, watch these during
   your personal time. Use a distraction blocking tool like Stayfocusd
   or Freedom
   if you have to. If the videos are work-related, ask yourself if you’re really
   going to use the information.


4. 
   Snacking.
   I get it, you get hungry when you work. But leaving your desk to get snacks can
   be a big distraction. Consider keeping some healthy snacks in your office so
   you don’t have to go far to find something to eat. Even better, keep a container
   of cool water nearby. (People often mistake thirst for hunger.)


5. 
   Meetings.
   Unless there’s a set agenda, meetings can take a lot of time. Be especially
   wary of routine meetings with no real purpose. If your small team meets every
   week whether they have something to discuss or not, consider replacing the
   weekly meeting with a status report in the form of a memo.

Now that you’ve planned your time, let’s examine some other
ways to reduce busy work.

Step 3: Use the Right Tools

As a small business owner, you have many responsibilities
including lots of routine tasks. It’s not uncommon for a business owner to try to
handle those tasks using only the software tools they are most familiar with.

If you haven’t added any new software tools to your work
process in several years, chances are that you’re not working as efficiently as
you could be. A lot of routine tasks can be handled more effectively if you
have the right tool. And new tools are being developed every day.

If you find that a single type of task is taking a
significant amount of your time, look for a more efficient way to perform that
task. For example, payroll is one type of task than can take a lot of time as
your business grows. It can take a long time to process payroll even if you
only have a few employees. There are ways to streamline the payroll process.
Take a look at our Tuts+ tutorial for tips on how to handle payroll
efficiently:

• 
  Payments
  
  
  How to Run Payroll (Systematize Your Process)
  
  
  Andrew Blackman

Disorganization can also be a big time waster for the small
business owner. Fortunately, there are many tools to help you with organization
and productivity. For some specific ideas on improving your productivity using Mac software, review: 

• 
  Apps
  
  
  15 Best Productivity Apps for Your Mac
  
  
  Laura Spencer

For small business owners with employees, it’s also
important to make sure that your employees have the right tools as well.

Tools are not the only way to reduce the time you spend on
routine tasks.

Step 4: Get Help

Does it seem like the only way to get everything done is to
do it yourself? Many small business owners overextend themselves by trying to
handle everything. That’s a quick route to burnout and mistakes.

Even if you’re not ready to hire more employees yet, you
don’t have to do everything yourself. Outsourcing some of your workload saves
you time and allows you to focus on your core business. Here are three types of
tasks to consider outsourcing:

1. 
   One-time or Occasional Tasks. Your business may not be big enough to hire an employee to
   design your web page or write your marketing copy, but that doesn’t mean you
   have to do it yourself. This type of task is ideal for an independent
   contractor. EnvatoStudio makes it easy to find a quality contractor in fields such as logo or graphic design, programming, copywriting,
   and many more. Discover more ideas on time saving tips for working with designers.


2. 
   Tasks that Require Specialized Knowledge. If you find yourself constantly doing a lot
   of research because you don’t know how to handle certain business tasks, you
   might be better off delegating those tasks to someone with professional
   training. For example, taxation is one area where many small business owners
   are weak. Accountants are specifically trained on how to handle business taxes.


3. 
   Routine Administrative Tasks. A virtual assistant can help if you spend a lot of
   time on routine clerical tasks such as sorting and answering email, promoting
   your business on social media, or updating your contact list. Most virtual
   assistants work as independent contractors. You can hire them for a set number
   of hours each week or month. Or, you can work with them on an as-needed basis.

To tell whether it make sense to hire someone for a task ask
yourself these questions:

• How long does this task usually take me?


• How much will I have to pay to get someone to
  perform the task for me?


• Can I do a first-rate job on this task?

At first outsourcing some tasks may seem too expensive. For
example, you might think you can’t afford to hire an attorney or an accountant.
Remember, though, that their specialized training and knowledge allows them to
perform their tasks much more quickly than you could. Also, using a
professional frees you to focus on revenue-producing activities.

There’s one final step that will reduce busy work (and
improve your health).

Step 5: Get Enough Rest

It may seem counter-intuitive, but sometimes the more you
work the less you get done. This is especially true for the small business
owner, who may be burdened with busy work and other concerns.

Unfortunately, tired people work more slowly. If you’re
working long hours and going to bed late to try to get more done, don’t. You’re
probably sabotaging yourself.

Not getting enough sleep is a
serious health problem. Lack of
sleep can cause concentration problems and in some cases may lead to illness.
Most adults need between seven and eight hours of sleep, so plan your schedule
so that you get plenty of rest. If you have employees, make sure that they also
take enough time off to get adequate rest.

Your Next Step: Take Control of Your Busy Work

As a small business owner, you may feel overwhelmed by
everything you have to do. It doesn’t have to be that way.

To take reduce your busy work, remember the five steps in
this post:

1. Track your time to learn how you spend it.


2. Plan your time by prioritizing important tasks.


3. Use the right tools to work more efficiently.


4. Delegate administrative tasks, one-time tasks,
   or tasks that require expertise.


5. Get enough rest.

To learn even more about improving your productivity, start with the basics, dig into our series on building your own productivity system, or check our
productivity category on Tuts+. Here are some of our most helpful productivity tutorials
for small business owners:

• 
  Productivity
  
  
  How to Stay in Control of Your To-Do List
  
  
  David Masters


• 
  Productivity
  
  
  Your Productivity Style: Find It and Use It for Better Work
  
  
  Annie Mueller


• 
  Productivity
  
  
  How to Do One Thing at a Time—and Stop Multitasking
  
  
  Andrew Blackman

Take a few initial steps to get started with the tasks you and your team work on in your business. Delegate where needed, improve your systems, allocate your time better, and reshape your focus. Experiment with areas that can make your small business workflow better. You want to make sure your time is being used best, as there's only a finite amount of it.