Being an entrepreneur means being constantly on the go, juggling multiple balls, and wearing multiple hats! If you’re a business owner struggling to stay organised, here are our 5 top recommendations for tools to help you keep on top of your life!
1. A diary
But not just any old diary. You need a journal-style diary in which you can capture not only your day to day meetings, but also your tasks in order of priority, your overall goals and aims for your business, and which has plenty of space for taking notes in meetings. If you can find a diary that does all this, it will be the only item that you need to carry around with you everywhere, other than a pen! Have a look at the ‘Daily Greatness’ series of planners for inspiration.
2. An email scheduler
It’s crucial to keep in touch with your customers but finding the time to do it can be a challenge. Using an email scheduling programme such as Mailchimp means that you can set aside a block of time to create a few months’ worth of regular emails, and then set these to automatically release on the correct dates. This will mean you’re never in the position again when you realise you should have sent an email and have missed your opportunity!
3. A social media scheduler
Social media marketing is only effective when it’s regular, and finding time to post every day can be a challenge for even the most digitally-savvy entrepreneurs. There are several platforms which you can use to schedule your social media posts a month or two in advance, which allows you to block out time to create regular posts that will then slow release. ER Grove uses Hootsuite for its social media management, which is available in both free and paid versions.
4. Secure cloud storage
Entrepreneurs tend to be out and about all over the place, and there’s nothing worse than realising you’ve got a few hours to spare in a random coffee shop somewhere but that you can’t use them to work because your files are back at the office! Using secure cloud storage like OneDrive means you can access your files anywhere that you have an internet connection, meaning you’ll never be caught out again!
5. In & Out trays
An oldy but a goody, the humble in and out tray can be a real space saver as well as a powerful organisational tool. Instead of labelling them in and out, try ‘new’ and ‘pending’ so that you have somewhere to put things that you need to deal with, but not immediately. Then use your fancy new diary to make a note to check the pending tray once a week to ensure that nothing important gets missed.
It can be hard to stay on top of your finances as a busy entrepreneur, which can lead to disaster if you’re not careful! Talk to one of our advisors today about our cloud-based accounting software, and our bookkeeping and payroll services.
