Efficiency is a propeller of success and should be a mainstay in your mind
throughout your working life.What exactly does it mean to be efficient? Being
efficient means: achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or
expense.As entrepreneurs, one must follow the exact meaning of this word in order
to produce the success that we are chasing after along this entrepreneurial journey.
For most of us procrastination, fear and laziness inhibit us from truly placing
ourselves in the position of welcoming the opportunity for success. Clearly for us
to become great entrepreneurs efficiency must be the main ingredient in our
strategic plan.
But how do I become more efficient you ask?
Being efficient is not something that can be particularly achieved overnight. It
takes discipline and a great deal of effort to break bad habits and introduce yourself
to a new form of productive consistency.Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There
are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a
week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a
week. And remember, your mind is the most complex, powerful organ in your
body. This means that overcoming what is set in your brain can be a difficult task
to take on. Being efficient though is something that must be mastered by all
entrepreneurs if they are focused on becoming the rulers of their own realm.
Efficiency is what separates the greats from the average. The greats are willing to
go the extra mile and put in the extra work required to become successful. This
illustrates that efficiency and success are intertwined and in the mix of this
chemistry is consistency and a focused determination.
Now let’s outline how you can become an efficient entrepreneur.
PREPARE.
The key to be efficient and effective when you have pockets of time is
to be well prepared. Know what needs to be done and the task’s priority, and be sure
you have the resources at hand to complete the task.Using mobile devices and
cloud-based apps allows you to access the data, applications and documents you
need, wherever you are.
TECHNOLOGY.
It is the most generic thing to this list and of course technology
increases efficiency.Duh!.However there are a few very specific pieces of
software and hardware that have been found to be critical in the zest to be
as efficient as possible and are listed below.
• Evernote- It keeps written notes from meetings, your voice notes while driving, your
photos of whiteboards, articles of business posts you want to read/access and it does it all
in a light and easily searchable user interface. This is the go-to app for everything that is
related to meeting details you need to remember.
• Bufferapp.com– Bufferapp allows you to schedule social media updates on three
networks (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn). Buffer allows you to queue social media
updates and then delivers them according to a pre-determined pace. It makes social
media content very manageable.
• Your Mail. It transcribes your voicemail into email.It is data rich, and their transcriptions
are really accurate
• Make list. You should be a list-maker. Think of it as a form of goal setting. Even If
you have just an hour, take a moment to make a list of the things you wants to
accomplish during that time. This helps you prioritize tasks and also adds a sense
of urgency so you don’t get bogged down in doing just one thing.
Don’t Skimp on Delegating.
It’s tough to do and entrepreneurs often think it’s
easier to do everything themselves, but one should emphasize on the importance
of training your employees to handle more and more responsibility. You simply
can’t do it all yourself.If you’re not delegating everything you can that is not the
best and highest use of your time, you’re actually costing your company
money.”That goes for you and for your employees.”!
Say no more often.
As an entrepreneur you probably get invited to do a lot of
things. Speak on a panel, go to a conference, join an advisory board and other
types of fun volunteer and networking opportunities. While it is important to keep
connected, meet new people, even build your personal brand, this kind of stuff can
get out of control in a hurry. Business travel is important, but nothing beats
working with your team, in the office, together. If you want to be more efficient,
you’ll have to say no more often even though you really want to say yes. I’m not
suggesting you be a selfish jerk, but there is a time and season for all of these types
of things. Some entrepreneurs use these options as excuses to get away from the
daily pressures and grind of building a business. That is a yellow flag if you ask
me. Needing to escape now and again is healthy. Doing so with any regularity
might signal a deeper problem. So stick with your daily business; say no to more
and down the road, after everything works out, you’ll be able to say yes to all of
these things and more.
Meetings.
Everyone has them and everyone hates them at one time or another.
The reason most people have such a dislike for them is because they last too long.
When things last too long, by definition, they are in fact wasting time. In my
experience I’d say that 95% of all meetings can and should last less than 60
minutes. Most can be done in 30 minutes really. It takes discipline and effort to
make sure meetings are completed in this amount of time. However, once you get
used to the 60 minute (or less) meeting, you’ll wonder how you ever did without
out.
As I continually mention, this is all a mind thing, so once you conquer your
mind anything is possible.As we continue throughout our work lives remember
efficiency is what we all should strive to produce for ourselves.Look ahead for the
windows of open time and plan ahead to maximize this time so that you can fit
more into those “wasted” minutes and hours.
This article was written by Aditya Neema, an Associate Member of Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur!
