Managing everyday tasks and projects as a small business owner can become very overwhelming, leading to burnout, disorganisation, and teams that are misaligned and inefficient. Luckily, technology has your back! This article will provide you with tools, tips, and tricks for getting organised and efficiently managing your business projects. Want to increase your productivity and make less mistakes? Keep reading to find out how!
What is a Project?
- Anything with multiple steps or tasks to complete
- May involve other people or teams
- Time sensitive
- Order of events matters
- Could be a very simple or very complex series of tasks
- May contain repetitive processes
Benefits of Projects & Project Management
- Avoid mistakes and missing deadlines
- Easier to manage and stay organised
- You’re able to take on more work
- You experience less stress
Challenge:
Identify your projects. What processes do you have that require more than one step? Are your current methods of project management working well for you and your team?
How Technology Can Help
Ask someone who knows:
Peter Barfield
In our quest to be organised and stay on top of things, we asked Peter Barfield of PBS Creative for his thoughts on some of the easily accessible software solutions to help us Get More Done and Fail Less.
You can find out more about Pete and his company here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterbarfield/
Here are Pete’s thoughts:
The Best Free App for Project Management
If you have an iPhone, the Reminders app is a simple task tracking, accountability, and task sharing app that allows you to keep track of your to-do lists and projects while enabling you to share them with others. This app can link up with Microsoft Outlook and iCloud to help you stay organised and accountable from anywhere and any device.
Not only can you set notifications to remind you to do certain tasks, but you can set the reminder to repeat at certain times, like the first Monday of the month or every Thursday at 1pm. You can also assign reminders to your team members to help them stay on track.
Microsoft has launched a similar feature in Office 365 called Microsoft To Do, which is great for people who don’t have an iPhone. It’s available on Windows, Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Microsoft To Do is a basic, yet powerful task management program that enables you to set recurring reminders, share tasks with others, and assign tasks to others.
Other Project Management Tools:
In Pete’s business they have used Trello for the last nine-years to manage customer projects. Trello is a program that’s based on a tried and tested system called Kanban, which is a method of project management that uses real sticky notes or cards on a board to help you keep track of the various tasks in a project and what stage they’re in.
As a small business owner, you wear multiple different hats, which means you’re juggling many different projects and processes. This can get overwhelming and confusing, so it’s important to have systems in place to alleviate the stress and help stay organised. If you had a Kanban board for every process, your whole office would likely be covered in them, so that’s where platforms like Trello come in to save the day!
How Trello Works:
Trello is great for people who like tasks to be visually organised and easy to change. You can move the sticky notes around, assign them to team members, nurture collaboration, set deadlines, record discussions, and share outcomes. They can be configured in many different ways to align with the way you and your team work best. You can organise your tasks based on objectives, onboarding goals, or even resources and deadlines for podcasting… the options are endless! It’s truly customisable.
Below is an example of a real project board and the business project information you can add onto Trello behind rach of the cards.:
Other great features of Trello:
The Trello platform leverages automation, which can be helpful in saving you time and energy when it comes to setting reminders and due dates, assigning tasks, and setting statuses.
To optimise organisation, communication, and efficiency even further, Trello can be synced with other platforms like Slack, DropBox, Microsoft Teams, Google Drive, and more!
Trello recently came out with the Timeline and Calendar features to keep you extra organised and to avoid not becoming overbooked or overwhelmed with tasks.
Alternatives to Trello:
If you are serious about adopting this kind of technology in your business, make sure you check out other services available and choose the one that’s right for you. They all basically do the same but each has its own features that might suit you better:
Challenge:
How could you and your team use a project board to optimize your work systems and processes?
Conclusion:
As a small business owner, your time, energy, and mental capacity are gold. Innovative technology exists for you, so that you can increase your productivity and grow your business with less stress and failure, often for little to no cost. Nothing is more important to an entrepreneur than organisation, efficiency, and achievement. Sure, you’ll make mistakes along the way, but these tools and tactics will minimise your time spent making mistakes while optimising your processes.
What are you waiting for? Take the leap and go innovate your project management!
Has this article got you thinking about your business and how you want to grab the reins and drive it forward but you struggle to find the time or feel that you lack the skills or knowledge to do so?
Are you looking at your screen wondering how or if Good2Great could possibly help you to build a better future for you and your company?
If so, why not check out free ways to learn more either in the fun but growth focussed ‘Friday Hub Zoom Room‘ or let’s meet and chat about your business – it’s our passion after all! Just click this link, it will show you availability in my calendar – just grab a slot that suits you and it will automatically set up and schedule a Zoom meeting and send all the necessary invitations to calendars and email… https://bit.ly/meetingwithjohnny
OR – perhaps you’re still at the start of your business journey – check out Business Start Up Masterclasses
