One thing that people have in common is the amount of time we have in a day. Daylight hours might vary but there’s essentially 24 hours for each individual to use up. How to manage all of those hours remains a universal struggle that transcends location, status, and age.

Why you must get control of your time

Regardless of how long you’ve been in the business and which industry you’re in, proper time management is crucial to the success of your enterprise. Sadly, few entrepreneurs see time as a valuable resource so little is done to make better use of it.

You might be hiring Filipino workers who have won awards or spending a lot on expensive online advertising. Even so, managing your time is the most important for business success, but you’re likely wasting it. Here are some of the reasons why you must take control of your time:

• It helps you manage your workload more effectively so you complete and deliver tasks on time.
• It allows you to keep important tasks on the highest priority so you give them more attention.
• It enables you to finish tasks as soon as possible without compromising the quality of the output.
• It eliminates procrastination by familiarising you with your to-dos and letting you work smarter.
• It reduces the amount of pressure and stress which hamper your productivity and efficiency.
• It improves the quality of your life since it helps you balance your personal and professional matters.
• It helps you build a good reputation at work since you’re punctual with your responsibilities.
• It gives you more time for recreation and leisure thereby improving your mental wellness.
• It lessens the amount of time spent on activities that are unrelated to your business objectives.
• It gives you more confidence in your work as you accomplish small goals more easily and quickly.

How to use technology to get control of your time

With time being a precious commodity, there’s not enough of it to go around. It stands still for no child, woman, or man so make the most of it whenever possible. There are many ways to take control of your time, and technology has been particularly useful in this modern world.

Organising your priorities

Those in leadership positions may use cloud-shared task lists and calendars for prioritisation. Especially when working with remote staff in the Philippines, it’s easy for you or your team to get distracted by different projects and deviate from the correct path.

To ensure that everyone stays on the right track to meet important deadlines, set up a cloud server with a to-do list that everyone may update everyday or every week. Hold regular meetings with these servers as the reference to check that the entire team is on the same page.

Giving yourself direction

Another way of leveraging technology is by using goal management software to point you in the right direction. These tools enable you to set, categorise, prioritise, and track goals like for sales and growth. They’re also useful for your personal lives if you’re aiming for something for your health and wellness, for instance.

Some features you may expect from goal-setting tools include collaboration, data analysis, progress tracking, and templates making. It’s good to choose software that may be integrated with your project management system to plan, monitor, and measure the progress of your team. Remember to set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals.

Automating where possible

One tip for business leaders trying to juggle so many responsibilities is to automate where possible. If there’s an activity that you do regularly, be it contacting your remote assistant or posting updates on social media, look for tools that enable you to batch or automate it.

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing, and automation will save you hours every week. For small businesses, it gives you more opportunities to focus on core competencies, improve customer experience, and reclaim your time. ChatGPT is an example of an AI tool that’s worth looking into lately.

Optimising your meetings

To make the most of your time as an entrepreneur, you want to use technology to streamline and organise your tasks, including meetings. There are tools available that offer voice recognition and transcription so you may capture and record minutes, conversations, and interviews.

Meeting software lets you save time in turning your audio into text so you may easily search for topics or quotes later on. Some tools come with analytics features so you know how much time is spent each meeting and if they’re being held efficiently.

Minimising the distractions

What makes the best leaders is the ability to think and act clearly, and this only happens when they aren’t distracted by what’s around them. Maybe you want to focus on hiring staffing, for example, but you’re searching for candidates on social media and get distracted by your feed.

Apps on your phone or extensions on your browser let you set restrictions for your screen time. They allow you to limit the amount of time you’re on entertainment websites or social media. Some project management tools also enable you to set a Do Not Disturb mode to limit notifications.

Reminding of deadlines

Give yourself deadlines for accomplishing repetitive tasks throughout your workday. This ensures that quick conversations don’t turn into hour-long discussions or that you’re not overthinking simple problems into bigger ones. Setting alarms remind you that you need to wrap up soon and proceed to the next task.

This way, you aren’t overwhelmed when your task list is far from done at the end of the day. Sticking to your schedule helps you determine the amount of time and energy to invest in each activity. In other words, it enables you to better prioritise and manage your to-dos.

Managing customer expectations

Customer relationship management is an important part of any business, no matter the industry or size. When you’re a small business owner, you may feel overwhelmed by the number of platforms available regarding customer experience e.g. social media, contact forms, emails, live chats, and so on.

CRM software enables you to manage all of these interactions in one place to save time and resources. You also save on subscription costs since you only have to spend on one tool rather than a dozen. It’s easier to train your new hire in the Philippines on just one application.

Reclaiming personal time

Do you want to be productive at work and lead a peaceful private life at the same time? Planning is crucial so you’re sure that enough time is allocated for everything that matters. Even the default calendar on your phone is suitable for blocking time for work and play.

If you want features that allow you to colour-code your schedule and categorise tasks, there are applications for that purpose as well. An example is Google Calendar which also gives you custom reminders for meetings, interviews, and the like. Calendly is the best for scheduling appointments while considering others’ free time.

Hire a VA in the Philippines

While it’s not as obvious or direct, hiring remote assistants through a recruiter agency is also another way of leveraging technology for getting control of your time. Not only does it save you time in searching for suitable candidates but also it streamlines your recruitment process.

We at Remote Workmate record your preferences or needs then screen candidates based on that information. We scour through our existing talent pool as well as find more professionals for consideration. We’ll also replace a Workmate when they don’t meet your expectations.

Are you ready to hire Filipino remote workers? Click the button below to start hiring!