Many business owners are furiously trying to fulfill goals to manage time better. Are you one of those business owners? Are you constantly on edge when trying to complete projects due to poor time management? Are you always panicky about deadlines?
Does your to-do list become a "no-time-to-do" list?
If so, you're probably struggling with time management. In fact, if you're going through any of the situations mentioned, you are having a time management problem.
Why Statistics Are Important for Your Business
The purpose of statistics in business is to help assess specific data to ascertain what it takes to keep a company's operation and strategies at peak performance.
Statistics also assist in informing you of the various parts of your business and how they must and can work together. It's not all about balance sheets and revenue either. It also comes down to analyzing your various business dealings and how to use them in tandem effectively.
Suppose your company has a website, uses social media, and utilizes digital payments in any way. In that case, you are collecting statistics about your visitors and customers, and that is data every business needs to protect.
You can utilize every piece of data for valuable statistics. Here's how:
- Observe and review statistics from business activity to better understand each segment of the process and comprehend what course to take to repair any breakdowns and expand those that are doing well.
- Decipher your company's logistics on how each department, your team, marketing, delivery, customer interactions, etc., are functioning. Gathering and analyzing data will reveal how everything works.
- Vitalize business processes to decrease excessive money spending and time-wasting. Time-wasting activities have a tremendous impact on company resources, employee productivity, and revenue.
- Examining data and condensing the information into statistics is crucial for understanding your clients and your market. Without this information, how do you know where you stand with your patrons, who they are, and if your approach is effective?
Listed below are some common on-the-job time-wasters for remote and In-office workers:
- Idle talk – 42 percent
- Too much time texting and conversing – 50 percent
- Checking social media accounts – 38 percent
- Checking and responding to emails – 23 percent
- Browsing online – 39 percent
- Multiple breaks for napping, munching, and other trivia – 27 percent
- Teleconference meetings, physical meetings, and other web meetings – 23 percent
- Distractions and interruptions from co-workers – 23 percent
Did you know that top managers' time is tied up in physical and teleconference meetings nearly 24 hours during the week?
If you often waste a lot of time on virtual meetings, implementing research-backed teleconference hacks will improve your ability to manage time better.
Another study showed that an incredible 16 days annually are wasted searching for non-digital documents.
If you often waste time searching for non-digital documents, you can use labeled files and filing cabinets to store documents.
Alternatively, you can convert your physical files to digital documents using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) solutions. This way, you can easily find documents using the search feature.
According to time management statistics, knowing the common workplace time-wasters can help you to eliminate them. Pinpointing and ending these activities can boost business growth, increase workplace productivity and worker satisfaction.
Bottom line: find your time-wasters today.
Time Management Deal Breakers
As specified by Forbes.com, various time management behaviors can work against your best interest if you're not focused on how you manage your time.
Scheduling meetings, speaking with clients, getting that video call just right, or dealing with an indeterminate situation that arises, can easily lead you astray. It's as if the workday passes by in a blur without you ever getting the opportunity to tackle your priorities.
Here are a few suggestions:
- Incorporate priorities into your calendar at least two months in advance. This should be an obvious choice; however, it's a task that's easier said than done.
- Plan and refer to the priorities on your calendar regularly. Remain focused, and your time management issues will eventually become more manageable.
- Don't simply jot down apparent tasks like weekly video conferences and getaways—Chronicle core goals and how you want to accomplish them during the year. Be specific. Manifest your vision on paper and/or your digital calendar.
- Research suggests that there is a link between time management and sleep habits. Getting the recommended amount of sleep can help you manage your work time more effectively.
- Get your passive and active work in order. Your active work might include concrete activities like demonstrations, interactions with clients, and other business associates. Passive work incorporates the "development stage" of your work, which includes analyzing, conceiving, and thinking.
Both activities are important. If you skip one for the other, you could miss crucial warnings that might save you time and money later.
Time Tracking Statistics
As a business owner, you might want to consider using time tracking apps. This productivity software streamlines the process of efficiently managing working hours. When implemented correctly, this system increases productivity and ultimately improves employee communication and performance.
Ignore those time-tracking critics who regard the use of apps as draconian and invasive. In most cases, these critics confuse spy software with time tracking tools. The truth is that both tools serve different purposes.
You probably have a few time-tracking critics in your company, and that's all right. You can assuage their fears by informing your staff that time tracking apps also work to their advantage. Explain how time tracking tools help them to maintain accurate time schedules; thereby, making certain that they achieve a work-life balance.
Most time tracking tools contain payroll modules that ensure that employees are properly paid.
Time tracking apps also assist with work schedules, helping staff members avoid conflicting vacation plans with their co-workers.
Here are more time tracking statistics to note:
- Just 17 percent of people seriously track their time.
- Productivity is decreased by 45 percent when multitasking without time-tracking assistance.
- The time-tracking market will increase worldwide by roughly 21 percent by 2025.
Seeing that nearly 80 percent of the normal workday is spent on activities unrelated to work (which means that merely 20 percent is spent on essential tasks), time-tracking apps look better and better each day, especially in the era of increased remote working.
Time Management Multitasking and Finances
Sites like Investopedia offer a wealth of information on a variety of verticals. In a recent article covering time management, the site focused on multitasking and finances. According to their research:
"Success in financial affairs is based on the ability to consistently prevail on crucial and speedy output. Not how well you multitask. Multitasking will consistently thwart your ability to provide your best to employees and clients."
Financial success has plenty to do with how you approach tasks as well. Do the most important, challenging, and pressing tasks first. Do one thing at a time and don't stop until it is finished. If you're working on a long-term project, categorize it by creating short-term goals for each section.
By using this method, you can bypass the need to start anew or become sidelined by unrelated tedious undertakings repeatedly.
Communication, competency, and business growth are equally crucial for successful time management skills and financial success.
10 Resourceful Time Management Statistics:
- Three hours per day are used to handle unexpected disruptions and difficulties by the average manager.
- Multitasking minus time-tracking reduces productivity by 45 percent.
- Out of every eight phone calls, one will be repeated due to misunderstood information.
- Employees work most from 9 to 12 PM; productivity tends to decrease 43 percent between 3 and 6 PM.
- The typical in-office worker doesn't know how to manage their emails. Studies suggest that the average employee checks email 50 times and social media 77 times while on the job.
- While planning tasks, people frequently miscalculate the time it takes to complete them; most tasks take double the time as originally planned.
- Messy workplaces result in at least one-half hour of wasted time searching for mislaid items.
- According to a Florida State University study, a worker's performance peaks when working uninterrupted for 90 minutes.
- Overall, staff members spend a bit more than 2 hours on productive tasks.
- Employees are hit with, on average, 7 to 8 interruptions per hour, totaling 50 to 60 per day, with most being nonessential.
Time management statistics and advice can be found at additional sites such as Forbes.com and clarifying workflow automation sites.
A New Way of Thinking About Time
Nearly every business owner desires to solve that age-old dilemma "how to manage their time" to increase business productivity and be more effective. However, it's about more than making things easier and faster. It's about a new way of thinking.
The best way to "manage time and not let time manage you" is to modify your mindset to be more effective in your business and with your employees.
About the Author: This is a guest blog from Chioma Iwunze at Time Doctor.