Ladies, Is Your Never Ending To-Do-List Costing Your Small Business Money?

Life as an entrepreneur can be chaotic at times. You have meetings, deadlines, pay roll, damage control, and maintaining current customers, while trying to search for new ones. Dare I even begin to list the house hold responsibilities? If you are anything like me, I can waste a couple minutes a day trying to find my favorite pen!

Lets face it, many of us have various responsibilities and we have to be honest with ourselves in regards to our ability to perform each necessary task. The cruel reality is your current productivity may only be an illusion. Think about ways to delegate some of the items on your to-do-list.

The to-do-list continues to grow, but how much is it costing you? Think of the desired salary you would like to make from your business. Please be realistic. Take that salary and divide it by 12 (months). Then take that number and divided it by 4 (weeks) and divide that number by 5 (or days of the week you work in your business). Lastly, take your answer and divide that by the daily number of hours you work in your business. Now you have your desired hourly rate.

For example, you would like to make $100,000 a year. That equates to $8,333 per month, $2,083.33 a week, $416.66 day (if a 5 day work week), and $52.08 an hour (if 8 hour work day). Of course these are rough numbers, but you get the idea. Based on this example, you can potentially lose $52.08 an hour for each hour you spend on a task that could have been delegated or simplified.

Here are some solutions I found that have worked me.

Grocery shopping on-line--\r If you have never done it, dont be afraid. I love it. If you use a commuter train to go to work, you can order your groceries while in route to work. You can order them on your lunch break, waiting in the doctors office, your abilities are limitlessunless you dont have a laptop. I started this because I was spending too much time in the grocery store and by the time I got to the register I had know idea how I spent so much money. Many times I didnt even have a complete meal in my cart! The truth of the matter is that I am a horrible grocery shopper, but thats my own issue. The on-line grocery store has a running total to let you know how much you are spending. Not to mention you dont have to worry about taking the bags to your car. They deliver to your door! If you are a home based business or a fellow single lady, you will definitely appreciate this service.

Couple of draw backs I have noticed. Sometimes they may not have one or two items and you may find yourself going to the grocery store anyway. Or the unthinkable, they may not offer this service in your area. Google groceries on-line and see what you come up with for your local area.

Growing your business with local colleges or universities--\r If you need to decrease the items on that to-do-list, consider recruiting at the local colleges or universities. Many times you can find students that can run errands for you. If your business is discipline specific, consider contacting a professor in that discipline. Ask them if they know of any dynamic students that can use some extra money to work in their field of study. In some cases you can offer a free internship with your small business.

If your business is not discipline specific, you can put flyers up in the various student\r \"hang out locations. Clear it with the school first. The great thing about this option is that it is typically very affordable and college students have flexible schedules to meet your demanding to-do-list.

What if you are limited on funds?\r You can always consider bartering your services with other small business, friends, or family. Lets face it, many countries where built on bartering services. Everyone was self employed and if they needed something they would exchange their expertise for the desired service or product. Now we have this concept that you have to buy everything and that is simply not the case. Maybe you can provide an hour of professional advice or a free product in exchange for the ability to cross off one more item on that to-do-list.

Good Luck!

Cinnamon McCann is the creative creator of Financial Fashion House, a financial education website for women. The purpose of the website is to provide financial education in a trendy and exciting format. It is also intended to provide an environment where women can network and feel inspired. Visit her at http://www.financialfashionhouse.com

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This entry was posted on Saturday, October 18th, 2008 at 9:21 am and is filed under Outsourcing Solutions . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.