You walk into your small business workspace, and you’re ready to get started. Your problem? There’s too many tasks and you’re not sure how to even get a proper list together, let alone start on any task. So you’re constantly leaving at the end of the day with a forever list of tasks. Here’s how using daily tasks can help you save time in your business.
Using Daily Tasks in your Small Business Workday
What are Daily Tasks?
Daily tasks are tasks that you do a little bit at a time daily. You’re constantly taking product pictures, so you’re constantly setting up and tearing down your backdrop. You’re constantly making video content for you social media, so you’re constant stopping each day to set up and break down your video set up. You write your newsletter around the edges of everyday, and it gets down seconds before the end of the week.
Those are just some examples of “daily tasks”. They may not take you long to do, however how much time do you think would be saved if you weren’t constantly having to set up and breakdown each day, or if you had dedicated time to write your newsletter and maybe plan your content. This is where my time management tip comes in.
This is actually how I’m writing this blog right now. I’m writing everything first, then another day I will sit down and make all of the graphics that I will need for this blog post, and add them to their blog post. A different day I will take them to social media and start sharing them, scheduling them out so people can read the posts that I’ve written.
Where do I Even Start?
Start by keeping a list of things you do each day, just write down the task you completed, no matter how small. At the end of the week, take some time and look at what tasks you do each day, see which ones you multiple times a week. Pull out your next weeks calendar, or quickly make one. Then start grouping your tasks together, pick a day – don’t overthink it much. If you know there’s a day that you need something done by, you will want to do that group of tasks before that day.
Make sure each of your work days has one or two tasks listed on it. When the new work week starts, you’ll look at your task calendar and work on the task for the day. Make note of anything that you may need to change, if doing something on one day just didn’t work, etc. At the end of the week, evaluate, note what you noticed through the week and adjust.
Don’t be afraid to change you tasks around. You have to be willing to change things around, in order to get the best work flow you can possibly have.
When I assign things in the daily tasks, I always took into account the way I felt in morning versus the afternoon. I almost always hit a 2pm wall, so I had to give myself something that was not time sensitive around that time, because I would be slower at my task at hand.
How is this Different then Batching by Task?
It’s different, depending on your schedule and the way you best work. Batching by task is doing all things social media is done on Sunday. Batching by daily task is you do social media scheduling, newsletter writing, and blog writing on Monday, but the planning doesn’t get done until Friday.
How is Batching by Day Different then Time Blocking?
Time blocking is blocking time on your calendar to work on different tasks. Time blocking is batching your time in your calendar for work, personal and leisure. This is very similar to batching by task, with a little sprinkle of power hours, since you stop working on that task when the time hits.
Batching task by day is a great way to save in the little times of your day. Remember to don’t over think where you’re putting your task, this isn’t set in stone. Try doing your time management like this for a few months before deciding to scrap it. There’s an adjustment period to this, just like any other new task.