The goal of most young entrepreneurs is to work effectively and reach their goals within the shortest time possible. Sadly, this doesn’t always happen. A good number of entrepreneurs fail to achieve this goal, and some abandon their venture within the first few years in business. One of the key reasons for the failure is a poor approach on productivity. Consider the following biggest productivity blunders of young entrepreneurs and tips on how you can avoid them.
Working without Plans and Goals
One of the key productivity blunders that can ruin your productivity is working without clear goals and strategic plans. A goal will show you want you want to achieve, and a strategic plan will show you how to meet your goals. Without the two, you could spend hours in the office and achieve no tangible result for your business at the end of the day.
Neglecting Personal Well-being to Work More
As an entrepreneur, you have so much on your plate. You are dealing with customers or clients, suppliers, potential investors, and employees. You have paperwork to get done, emails to reply to, people to call, and new ideas to evaluate. With so much going on, it’s easy to skip a good meal or sacrifice some hours of sleep to respond to some emails or go through a proposal. But what happens to your well-being tomorrow when you don’t eat right and sleep for the recommended hours today? You most likely won’t have the energy and concentration to be a productive person in the coming days. The consequences can cost you more than you gained on that one day you neglected your well-being and thus this is something you should avoid.
There are four key aspects of your well-being that you should not ignore. One, is the hours of sleep you get each day. This should be between seven and nine. Plan your evenings in such a way that you go to sleep and wake up at the same time each day. The sleeping environment also matters when it comes to getting quality sleep. Thus, check out the best mattresses and clean your bedroom and keep it tidy. With a bad mattress you are likely to wake up tired and, worse still, get some backache. This too can ruin your productivity. Two, eat balanced meals throughout the day. Three, exercise and find ways to have fun outside of work. Four, find time for your friends and family and work on toxic relationships that could be stressing you out and ruining your productivity.
Handling Too Much at Once
Doing too much at once doesn’t exactly make you a productive entrepreneur. Actually, when you are handling too many tasks or projects at once, you could end up with a poor or no result for each project. Multitasking can also create confusion and cause you to be stressed out. When you have too many tasks to handle consider four things: planning, prioritization, time management and delegation. Come up with a plan indicating what needs to be done and when. Identify what needs to be done first as you make to do lists. Learn how to manage your time well so that you get things done before the deadline. And most importantly, think about delegation and outsourcing to get things done quickly and effectively with the help of others.
Giving in to Distractions
If you have to stop and respond to every text or email, answer every phone call, entertain everyone who comes to your office while you are working, and click on videos as soon as you get a notification, you are not going to get much done at the office. If it can wait until later, don’t let it take your attention away from the main agenda for the day. Set aside some time to read and respond to emails so that you don’t do that throughout the day. Also, set clear boundaries with your team members, family and friends so that they don’t become distractions at work.
Finally, avoid being a disorganized entrepreneur. Keep your office clean and tidy, know where the files are, have good storage for you and your team members, and don’t forget to make use of labels as these will help you find what you need much more easily.
