“It’ll only take 15 minutes.”
How many times have you said that during your working day? You quickly reply to an email. Send an invoice. Update a client file. Check the calendar. Follow up on something from yesterday. None of these jobs seem particularly time-consuming on their own. But when you add them all together, those little 10 and 15-minute tasks can quietly take over a surprisingly large part of your week.
You start the morning with a plan.There are two or three things you really want to get done and you're determined that today will be productive. Then the emails start. Someone needs an invoice resent. A client has a question. An appointment needs changing. There's something you forgot to follow up yesterday. While you're doing that, you remember another little job that will only take five minutes. Before you know it, lunchtime has arrived and you haven't touched the work you originally planned to do. Sound familiar? It doesn't necessarily mean you're disorganised. Often, it's simply what happens as a business grows. There are more clients, more emails, more paperwork and more things that need your attention.
Imagine you have just six 15-minute admin tasks throughout your day. That's an hour and a half. Do that four days a week and you've spent six hours on small admin tasks. And that's before you count the time it takes to stop what you're doing, switch your attention to something else and then try to remember where you were. Suddenly, those “quick little jobs” aren't so little anymore. Some common time-stealers might include:
None of these tasks are unnecessary. Most businesses couldn't operate without them. The question is whether you need to be the person doing every single one of them.
This can be a difficult one when you run your own business. You can work all day and still finish feeling as though you haven't achieved enough. The problem isn't always the amount of work you're doing. Sometimes it's the type of work that's taking up your time.If you're spending hours dealing with routine administration, that's time you're not spending with participants or clients, following up new opportunities, improving your services or simply finishing work at a reasonable time. And you don't need to outsource everything to make a difference. Sometimes taking just a few regular tasks off your plate can give you back several hours each week.
For a few days, try paying attention every time you think:“I'll just quickly do this.” You might be surprised by how often it happens. Write those jobs down and look at them at the end of the week. Which ones genuinely needed you? Which ones could be grouped together? And which tasks could someone else manage for you?You don't have to hand over your whole business. Good support should fit around the way you work.
Maybe you'd spend that time supporting your clients or participants. Maybe you'd finally work on the plans you've been putting off. Maybe you'd finish early one afternoon. There's value in that too. Running a business will always involve admin, but it doesn't have to take over your week. Sometimes the first step isn't finding more hours in the day. It's simply looking at where the hours you already have are going. What's one “quick 15-minute job” you seem to do over and over again?