Time Saving Techniques For Tradespeople
Are you guilty of:
- Doing to many task yourself when you can delegate to your staff
- Just doing the job instead of thinking about using processes (how) to do the job.
- Multitasking with low productivity.
If so then maybe you can be smarter with time management.
You need to be as productive as possible, make the smartest decisions, and raise the most capable employees over time.
Techniques for better time management
- Map out your priorities
- Batch tasks
- Reorganise your schedule
- Outsource to professionals
- Automate with software
- Train your employees to be independent
- Build a business that learns
Technique #1: Think About Your Priorities
The most common reason for time being wasted is tasks are prioritised in the wrong order. You may also find that you have a lot of unnecessary or low priority tasks during the day that are taking up valuable time without helping your business.
When you are thinking about the tasks that you need to complete you should consider if there is a time limit on these tasks and prioritise the ones that need to be completed first. You should also consider whether there will be any consequences if certain tasks are not completed, such as hold ups further down the line.
Technique #2: Batch non-urgent tasks
For those non-tasks that you can’t delegate make sure that you save them up and do them all at once.
Maybe it is checking and following up on payments.
If you do them all at once you can focus better, limit set up or pack up time, be more efficient and save time.
Technique #3: Rebuild Your Schedule If Needed
If you do not think that your schedule is working, then there is no harm is completely rebuilding it from scratch. When you have a good schedule in place, then it will allow you to see what tasks you need to work on yourself and which ones can be delegated.
When you are distributing these tasks, you need to think carefully about the jobs that you are allocating to yourself. You need to be honest about yourself about whether it is you that really needs to do them.
There may be things that you can delegate to other employees that have had the correct training. This will leave you free to concentrate on the things that really do require your input.
Technique #4: Make Sure Your Employees Receive Good Training
When you are the boss, sometimes you can have to spend time on problems that could be solved by someone else.
This interferes with your own schedule and can give you less time to complete the tasks that you need to. It can also interfere with the time that you have with your family if you are getting calls when you are away from the site.
If you train your employees to only call you with problems that only you can deal with, then this will solve a lot of these issues.
Your employees should be trained to deal with both routine problems and some that may be unforeseen.
They should work together to solve any routine problems that may occur.
Technique #5: Have The Right Policies, Systems & Proceedures In Place
By creating and optimising systems and procedures that are documented and used, you your team will know exactly what needs to be done and can increase time efficiency.
Having good procedures for your employees to follow is another way that you can ensure they don’t have to bother you with routine queries. Your employees will have something that they can follow which will allow them to deal with the situation themselves.
This means that you have more time for your own tasks but it also means that you always have the reassurance that your business can keep running even when you are not there.
Technique #6: Outsource to professionals
You may not have the skills in your business for some specialised tasks such as tax accounting or marketing.
Rather than trying to hire in an expert or learn it yourself you can outsource it to a professional and focus on what you do best.
Technique #7: Use software to automate or organise business processes
New technology is being developed every day that can make your life easier.
Usually, there is a learning curve and you need to spend some time upfront to learn a new tool.
However, after learning it you can get long term efficiencies.
If you are not tech-savvy you can always delegate these things to other staff and then get them to train you so you want to know what is going on.
Technique #8: Make the sale
Providing quotes for the services that you provide can be a time-consuming activity.
Worst of all is if you don’t make the sale then you have spent time with no return.
Identifying customers that are most likely to purchase and spending extra time on those customers to increase the change that you will win the job can end up saving you time.
Conversely, if you are quite certain that the service you are providing is not a good fit for a customer or there is another reason that they are unlikely to purchase from you then reduce the time you spend on quoting these people.
Conclusion
Time is finite, once it is gone you can’t get it back.
By implementing some better practices in your business you can use your time more efficiently.
With more free time you can spend it working on improving your business or just doing other things that you enjoy doing.
If you take things to the extreme you may find that your business can run without you.
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