Growing  your business requires dedication and focus. Instead of working hard, you need to learn how to work smart and stay productive. I've collected  some simple tips below to help you stay productive and get things done the most effective way. After all, we work to live, not live to work. 

The Best Productivity Hacks to Help Scale Your Business

The best way to get your tasks done successfully is to prioritise your most important tasks. While I am a big fan of task lists, I also encourage you to select the 2-3 most important ones per day as your "must-complete" tasks.  If your daily to-do list is a mile long, you won't feel energised and motivated by it because you will know from the start, that you won't get to the end of your list daily. Instead of a long list, focus on the tasks that require your attention because they are urgent and/or important. When you consider your tasks, always group them in to four categories:

1. Urgent & Important - these should be your priorities 
2. Important But Not Urgent - put these on your calendar according to their deadlines. Do not jam up your daily work with these if they don't require your immediate attention.
3. Urgent But Not Important and Not Important & Not Urgent - bin them! Jokes aside if a task is not important or urgent you need to consider why it ended up on your do-to list, how you can get rid of the task, adjust it or remove it from your schedule. You need to ensure that you spend your time with things that move the needle in your business forward. 

Batch Working

The days of "multitasking" are over - unless you are an amazingly talented multitasker - which most of us are not! Do one task at a time and do it with your full attention. Multitasking can ruin your productivity and leave you exhausted, working unnecessarily hard while not achieving much by the end of your working day. I recommend you to allocate time for each task and complete them respectively. 

Reduce interruptions

This is easy to say, but many of us end up choosing not to do it: mute your notifications and pop up windows, put your mobile on airplane more and for the time dedicated for one task, focus on that one task without interruptions. If needed, introduce The Pomodoro Technique to allow yourself some scheduled breaks and create a structure workday with clear focus on your deliverables. Taking short breaks is helpful; it sharpens your vision and helps your mind consider ideas that may have been forgotten due to focusing on other things or simply feeling tired. 

You can do the following things to break up your time at your desk: 

• Take a walk or run and get some fresh air to oxygenate your brain.
• Sip a cup of coffee or green tea for an instant boost.
• Take a nap or meditate to help you refocus and reset your brain. 
• Alternate your working station from sitting down to standing up. 

Automate & Delegate

Introduce automation and delegation to your business. It's good to take things into your hands, do everything manually, and get everything under your control, but the best thing would be to save your time and invest it in something productive and fruitful. 

Invest in software promoting automation like Kajabi, Tailwind, Canva, Zoho Invoice, and Loomly to simplify and automate your processes. Set these tools up according to your business needs.  and you can easily get your invoices sent, social media posts published, great design created without design skills, reports created, newsletters scheduled etc. 

Focus On What You Know!

Focus on your genius and find some support in the areas that you don't find easy to do. Outsourcing parts of your business can help you free up valuable time, focus better, and ultimately, achieve success better. 

Keep Learning

Things don't stop here. To stay successful on your entrepreneurial journey, you need to stay ahead of the game. Find podcast, subscribe to newsletters, follow influencers and experts on social media so that you do things better today than what you were yesterday.

Find Your Tribe

Especially when you work from home, especially when you are a solopreneur you it essential that you find a group of people who can support your journey, uplift you on bad days, celebrate you on good days and helping you to recharge, vent and problem-solve any time in between. Go and check out Facebook groups for free groups but you can find plenty of paid-for options too such as Bossbabe Societé. 

Conclusion

Becoming an entrepreneur is easy, but being and staying a successful one is not. It can be stressful, tiring, and comes with many responsibilities of the roles that you need to handle all alone. However, creating systems, committing to always doing things one specific way, finding help can make all the difference you need.  If you enjoyed this article, you can read on and learn about Growing Your Service-Based Business in 6 Steps.