How to Save Work Hours Each Week as a Remote Business Owner
As a business owner, it can feel like there are never enough hours. Although we get the same 24, it depends on how you organise what you have. You can save work hours each week with some adjustments and help from others and AI. So how can you make better use of what you have? From automated client onboarding to asynchronous messaging, here are some ideas.
Outsource Non-Related Work Tasks
Starting a remote business often means beginning as the only person to get things done. However, after a while it becomes obvious that trying to do everything yourself is pretty much impossible, and there are others who can do specific jobs much better. For example, you can outsource tax for professional help with Making Tax Digital, returns and cost savings. If something isn’t related to your exact job, consider using external services that can do it better!
Automate the Client Onboarding Process
There’s a lot of work that was once done manually. However, those days are long gone as we now live in a world of automation. Automation in business is much more accessible, easy and cost-effective than you might think. When it comes to client onboarding, you can spend a lot of time without automation. However, you can now automate critical tasks such as contract delivery, welcome emails and scheduling links using popular apps such as Zapier and Make.
Save Work Hours Each Week with AI Transcription
A recent survey found that 71% of high-level leaders in business consider meetings to be pretty much useless and a waste of time. However, even when starting a business from home, it is likely you will have to take meetings, which takes up valuable time. What you may not know is that you can use tools such as CircleBack to automatically record, transcribe and summarise meetings so you don’t have to manually go through the entire conversation for what you need.
Implement Asynchronous Communication
It can feel like you are always on someone else’s schedule when trying to communicate. Video calls, phone chats and IRL (if you’re old-school) rely on two-way speaking and listening at the same time. However, modern workers are making it easier on themselves with asynchronous communication. This method (emails and DMs, for example) doesn’t require everyone to be present at the same time, meaning you can simply check messages and reply on your time.
Create Time Blocks for Focus Days
There can be quite a few distractions that decrease productivity when you are trying to work. Emails, messages and even phone calls get in the way of what should be a busy working day. While some can be a welcome break, they only cause delays down the line. However, you can embrace time-blocking for more focused work throughout your day. With this method, you set a specific block of time, perhaps an hour, and remove every distraction so you can focus on work.
Summary
Outsourcing professional work and extra tasks will help you save work hours each week, resulting in increased performance and productivity. You can also use AI transcription to summarise meeting content, and use time-blocking to power through work without distractions.