“My favourite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.”
Steve Jobs

Time really is the our most precious commodity and its finite, you really don’t have enough time.

If you think you are wasting time, doing things that you shouldn’t be, then you probably are.

As a business owner you need to get maximum impact for minimum time contribution in everything you do.

Here are five ways I have witnessed business owners waste time:

1. Doing things that others can do better – I have seen business owners open the post, update the website and even once cleaning the office. If your business is a small business then you may have to do all of these things but these businesses had more than 15 employees and the MD’s got involved with things that could be done better by his/her team.

2. Getting involved in other peoples roles – The owner of a business with more than 10 employees shouldn’t need to regularly interact with all members of his team, there should be clear lines of reporting so they only have to deal with a few people. Obviously you don’t want to be too aloof but any issues individual employees have should go through their direct manager.

3. Doing the work – Again if you have a small business then this can’t be helped but if you run a larger business and you are on the road, in the factory or in the warehouse then you are wasting your time, you have better things to do.

4. Finding things that should be easy to find – If you can’t find anything in your office and you waste time finding things just because there is no structure in place then this too is a waste of your valuable time.

5. Making wrong decisions – Not the easiest to correct this one as its difficult to tell at the time if a decision is a bad one or not. However, if you keep your vision for you business in mind when you make any strategic decision then you at least avoid making decisions that will take your business away from where you want it to be.

SO there you have it five things I have witnessed being done by small business owners. Are you doing any of these or are you wasting time doing something else?