Busy executives in management and leadership positions have one common grievance: Not enough time in the day. “Crazy busy” is the common refrain when asked, “How’s it going?” among colleagues. This is even more pronounced for small business owners, minority and women owned businesses, and sole proprietors.

Time management books are a dime a dozen, but who has the time to read them all? Rather than developing ulcers from frantic searches, missed appointments, forgotten tasks, stress and anxiety, take some basic approaches to the day and work week to gain a measure of wiggle room in the work day.

Get More Rest

That might sound very counterproductive to have the first tip be about taking more time to sleep, but if busy managers and owners are trying to gain time in the day by sleeping less, there are going to be moments during the day when exhaustion is going to hurt productivity.

Start a nighttime routine that will send signals to the brain and body that sleep is on its way. Shut off the television and spend 20-30 minutes reading something for pleasure. Don’t take this time to “read” invoices, tasks for the next day, and emails from customers or upper management. Turn work completely off and focus on something relaxing and enjoyable.

Sleep for at least seven hours. Eight is better, but never any less than six. And the sleep count doesn’t begin when the covers are pulled up, it begins when the sleeping process begins.

Start the Day Off Right

Hitting snooze eight times and then frantically flying through morning routines is not the way to start the day off right. Start planning on getting up a little earlier (which means going to sleep a little earlier) and make sure your routine includes a little cardio workout and a healthy breakfast that is low on sugar and cheap carbs.

Find some fun and easy low-sugar protein shake recipes to make it fun, but even just a scoop of quality whey protein in milk with a banana and a few cubes of ice make a great wake up meal. Prepare breakfast foods the night before for easy access in the morning. Hard boil a few organic, free-range eggs and slice them in the morning with a little sea salt and pepper.

Starting the day with only a mega cup of coffee and no breakfast, or an unhealthy pastry, will set the body up for a crash mid-morning.

Technology: Does it Really Help or Hurt?

A market research firm uSamp conducted a study and found “Sixty percent of workplace interruptions are tied to email, social networks, text messages, or simply switching windows in various applications.”

A survey of 500 workers found that more than half waste at least one hour per day on these, and other, distractions. Take an average salary of $30 per hour and a 40-hour work week. This translates to a production loss of $10,000 each year per person. This is significant for a big company, but imagine how devastating that can be to a MWBE or other small business?

Public transportation commuters should use this time on the bus, train, or in carpool to check work-related emails, messages, and other technology employed for the business. This could be blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and the like. Save the personal stuff for lunch break or even wait until the work day is over. So much time can be saved on that alone for those millennials and Generation Y’s who constantly use social media.

Workers in Small Business Enterprises

As an owner or manager of a small business, social networking and personal technology usage will quickly eat up precious time in the workday. Managers and owners might feel pressured trying to manage the personal usage of their workers because they don’t want employees to be unhappy. However, much of their time is distracted by constant checking of smart phones and interacting with the rest of the world.

Find a balance. Allow workers to use personal technology on breaks and lunches, but request that they keep personal mobile devices off during working periods. Not only will the workers gain more productivity in their day, it will also assist the manager and owner in being more productive. Often a MWBE owner or manager will find they have to take up the slack for things that do not get done by other workers.

Stop Multi-Tasking

No, this is not counterproductive. The human brain cannot concentrate fully on more than one difficult task. As a business owner, focus on the important things one at a time. This will allow the task to be completed more quickly, efficiently, and with higher quality than trying to accomplish several things at once, and not very well.

Some prefer a digital calendar with reminders built in a smart phone or PDA; however, try an old-fashioned approach to important tasks being hand written down in a Day-Timer type calendar. It will be too tempting to check other things on the smart phone like Facebook, text messages, personal emails, etc.

Organize Paper and Electronic Files

Another huge time waster is spending hours each week frantically searching for that email, folder, Excel spreadsheet, or Word document. Not only are there still hard copied files to keep track of, there are jump drives, external hard drives, laptops and computers that one person has in the arsenal of work items.

At the time of actually filing paper away, setting something down, or saving something to disk, make the time to organize or place it properly, name it properly, or note where the document is in one file that you keep in or on your desk at all times. Jot a note for things that will need to be accessed at a later date. Don’t rely on “I’ll find it later” because later will only come when there is a time crunch to find it.

Take a few hours of time to go ahead and organize information. Spending a few hours just once a quarter will generally be enough to stay ahead of the organization that will save many hours of time in between.

Consider Hiring a Professional Organizer

Let’s say that the organization that needs to happen is already far too gone to spend a couple hours organizing. If that is the case, rather than spending days on end of lost productive time managing the business, go ahead and spend the money to hire a professional organizer.

Make sure they come recommended and have a good reputation, but then let them take control of the mess. Once they bring things under control and you thoroughly understand the system employed, maintenance will be easy.

If you find a local professional organizer that is also a MWBE or sole proprietor, see if they are willing to negotiate a regular time each month to help keep it maintained after the initial work getting it under control.

Summary

It might seem too much like a cliché to start with sleeping more, exercising and eating right. However, unless the body is primed for good performance, no matter what else leaders do to priorities and cut down wasted time, it will make it far more difficult if the basic needs of the human body are not adequately met.

Turn off external noise, personal communication, and lost time searching for unorganized documents, and it might just be that the 24-hour day becomes an easy 25-hour day. Employing these few basic tactics will definitely help a busy small business owner, manager, or other “crazy busy” person gain better use of their time.

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