With more business comes more responsibility, especially for entrepreneurs taking their companies from the survival stage to the expansion stage. If you’re starting your own business with big ambitions for the future, chances are you’re overloaded with work, from managing employees to staying a step ahead of the competition. A growing business doesn’t necessarily have to correlate with a growing workload, however – just take it from the pros of putting “work smarter, not harder” into action.
In a viral post on Quora.com, which later inspired a Business Insider article, a handful of entrepreneurs shared their “productivity hacks” for making the most out of their work weeks. Take a look at five of their best tips.
[wpob id=”2″]1. Dustin Moskovitz, co-founder of Facebook and CEO of Asana, recommends incorporating one day into the work week where there are no meetings, appointments, or designated tasks for that day. Reserving a day free of directed work gives you and your employees the freedom to work on projects free of interruptions and obligations, and you’ll have less trouble squeezing tasks in between meetings during the rest of the week.
2. Software developer Paul Klipp suggests applying what is known as the Pomodoro Technique to his work habits. The Pomodoro Technique consists of 25-minute bursts of intense work followed by 5-minute breaks. Essentially, he says, this technique enhances his ability to focus on one task at a time instead of spending wasted hours on multi-tasking.
3. According to Matt DeCelles, co-founder of William Painter, business owners should write their three most important tasks on a Post-It note at the beginning of every work day. DeCelles says that this habit helps put his business’s top priorities into focus and also provides a great working framework for organizing the rest of the business’s tasks and how to delegate them. For these remaining tasks, DeCelles recommends using organizational software such as Asana or Trello for efficient task management.
4. Christian Sutadi, co-founder of Lolabox, suggests incorporating what he calls the “Two-Minute Rule” into your daily work habits: whenever you come across a task that can be completed within two minutes, knock it out immediately. Not only will you be one step further through your workload, but you’ll have one less have-to looming over your head throughout the day.
5. Virtu co-founder Remco van Mook is a huge fan of starting the workday early – before anyone else. He says that, although this habit can be a struggle for non-morning people at first, spending one to two hours completely focused on what you need to accomplish on your own has massive benefits for your overall workday because you’ll be able to get more done in those couple of uninterrupted hours than you would during your normal, less predictable work hours in a busier environment.
Source: http://www.quora.com/Productivity/As-a-startup-CEO-what-is-your-favorite-productivity-hack