Eliminate These Common Time Wasters

Time is our most precious commodity. It seems like there’s never enough of it and we make it worse by wasting tons of it every day! Here are some common time wasters that you can learn to eliminate to recapture more time, and up your productivity while doing it!

  1. Email Excess – Of course, we can’t eliminate email, it’s essential to your business. What you can eliminate, or at least reduce, is the habit of checking it or responding to every ping. Set-up your email to alert you only if it’s critical, like messages from clients. Then check at the beginning and end of the day. Try reducing internal email as well. Whenever possible, stick your head around the corner and just talk to your colleagues.
  1. Paper Problems – A recent survey found that 46% of SMBs say paper intensive processes waste a lot of time every day. If your team spends hours searching for missing paper documents, it’s time to go digital. By using products like Xerox ConnectKey-enabled multifunction printers and document management software you can scan and digitize documents making them easily searchable, saving time!
  1. Digital Disorganization – Just because you’ve uploaded documents to the cloud doesn’t mean they’re organized. Create a consistent system for storing data. Create a standard naming and folder system. Xerox Web Capture Service automates the process, scanning documents directly into web apps like Quickbooks Online, Microsoft Office and Google apps.
  1. Pointless Meetings – Meeting are the biggest time wasters out there! Assess your schedule of meetings for the week and determine if they’re really necessary for you to attend. If you have to call a meeting, try a “standing” meeting – this will motivate attendees not to dawdle!
  1. Online Distractions – Social media today is a part of every company’s marketing plan, so we need to be on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook every day. But it’s easy to get pulled down the rabbit hole online. When you need to set limits use a tool like Freedom or StayFocused to block problematic websites for the length of time that you choose.

If you look at how you spend your time, you’ll find plenty of areas you can improve. These five tips can help you to add productive time to every day. They’re easy to implement and they work!

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