Habits Bookkeepers Can Develop to Increase Productivity

by | 14 September, 2020 | 0 comments

Habits Bookkeepers Can Develop to Increase Productivity

What makes a productive person? What do they do, what habits do they follow?

The common notion of productivity is the ability to get a lot done in a short span of time. While this is true, it is not complete. True productivity is the ability to create high impact results in a short amount of time. This is the kind of productivity that matters, not busy work that creates no impact in the long term. For example, it’s better to send out one email that may double your sales, than reply to 100 emails that make no difference to your business.

We at The Savvy Bookkeeper are always finding ways to be highly productive and have identified that sticking to a few habits help to get the best out of our days. If you follow even just a couple of these tips you will see your productivity increase.

Remove the Unimportant (and Focus on the Important)

Before you start your work day,

  1. Write down what you are going to do.
  2. Identify the most important tasks, and rank them by importance.
  3. Ask yourself: “Are these the best use of my time? Do they bring me closer to my goals?”

You want to work on the most important things for the day. For the non-important tasks, push them to a later date or take them off the list. Remember Learning to Say NO is sometimes important.

Many people tend to wrongly classify regular tasks as high-value tasks. The Savvy Priorities Masterclass is a great tool to classify your tasks and help you create space in your busy week. You can register to learn more on how to ‘Get more done with less effort and align with your true priorities’. This masterclass will help you identify clearly, which are the tasks that contribute to your long-term goals such as having good health, building meaningful relationships, and pursuing your ideal career.

Do Your Most Dreaded Task First

Every one of us has one or more tasks on our to-do list that we dread doing. Maybe it’s that unpleasant phone call you don’t want to make, or that proposal that you’ve been putting off writing because you don’t know how to start, or that project that just overwhelms you because it’s so massive. Whatever it is, it hangs over your head, distracting you with guilt because it keeps getting pushed to the next day and the next. It’s time to end that cycle.

While there are many things you can do to pursue your goal, focus your energy on the few tasks that create the biggest impact. If you are struggling with basic templates for your Bookkeeping Business or tired of sending ugly documents to your clients, or spending ages putting proposals together, then Savvy can help you with our customised bookkeeping templates, documents and forms which not only look great but will also allow you to send documents easily and collect eSignatures from your clients.

Remember being effective means being strategic in how you approach your goals by focusing on the biggest impact actions. Being efficient means doing your tasks quickly and accurately and using the tools such as templates that help making those dreaded tasks easy.

Take Breaks

No matter how much you work, there are areas in your life that work can’t fulfill. Be sure to take breaks. You can take regular short breaks throughout the day, such as looking out of the window for 5 minutes every hour, or meditating for 5 minutes when you are tired.

Scheduling breaks can keep you fresh and productive throughout an entire day.

We at Savvy can help take the load off running your Bookkeeping Business. Did you know that we have developed the Business Stress Test to help you model your Bookkeeping Solutions and help best with your Bookkeeping Business survival plan no matter what the market trends are.

Business Stress Tests enables you to act nimbly when unexpected changes happen. This means that you can make prudent decisions very quickly. Those Bookkeeping Businesses that are able to adapt to change are the ones that will prosper in the future.

Remove Distractions

In today’s deeply networked world, we face distractions everywhere. It’s easy to visit our social profiles when we lose focus. But each click wastes 10-15 minutes of our time. With emails, social media, and a thousand little to-dos, it’s easy to get distracted when you’re trying to be productive.

Whether you’re trying to focus on deep work or just dealing with smaller tasks, distractions are the bane of productivity. It’s hard to maintain efficient work habits with distractions around. One powerful method of reducing distractions is creating a “distraction list.”

Keep this list — whether it’s a Google Doc or a physical piece of paper — nearby while you’re working. Whenever a distracting thought pops up, write it down on the list and get back to work.

Set Simple and Achievable Goals

Even though you enjoy the process of doing something without a deadline, there are certain tasks where it’s good to set a timeline. This is especially so for big goals, because you can end up working on them for ages. A timeline helps you stay focused and prioritize. It also helps you keep the end in sight.

The goal here isn’t perfection. The goal here is to get something out so that you can get something done and improve on it.

What do you want to finish by this month? Set your targets. Break down your goals for the month into weekly tasks, then daily tasks. Use this task list to guide your daily activity. This will help you make the best out of your days.

To learn more about create SMARTS goals check out The Bookkeepers Voice, Episode 72 to hear Amy and Maia discuss what the extra ‘S’ stands for and how you can implement it into your Bookkeeping Business.

Create a Flow Environment

A flow environment is an environment that inspires you and helps you achieve peak productivity. It could be as simple as improving your work area, ergonomics, add elements of colour or vibrancy. Even though it may not seem like it, your environment plays a big role in your productive output.

Ask yourself: Does your work environment inspire you? Does it help you stay productive? If not, what changes can you make to stay productive?

Use Time Pockets

Time pockets are the pockets of time you have in between activities. You usually get time pockets when waiting for people, commuting, queuing, or waiting for the next event to happen.

Look at your schedule. What are your time pockets, and how can you maximize them? Have ready things to do during these pockets, such as listening to Savvy podcasts, reading books, and planning. You will be amazed at how much can be done in a short amount of time!

Automate

If you find yourself doing the same things over and over, look for ways to do those things faster. This can be as simple as learning common keyboard shortcuts, or involve automating entire sections of your Bookkeeping Business.

With technology, it’s possible to automate a lot of things. Even when it’s impossible to fully automate the task, you can still automate part of it. You can also read on previous blog on how to Streamline Your Bookkeeping Business with the Help of Your Website.

Some things you can automate include:

  • Set email filters to file your emails into specific folders. That way, it becomes easier to read emails and respond to mail, not sort.
  • Bookings ad Meetings. Automate your website so clients can book appointments, make payments online and these just get added to your calendar. You get a notified automatically and can work on preparing for the call, rather than the administrative hassle like figuring out time zone, arranging for a time, etc.
  • Social Media. Whenever you have a new post, it is automatically posted on your social media profiles.
  • Similarly, you can add workflows and automate a lot of these administrative and time consuming task via your website to increase your productivity.

 Conclusion:

Highly productive people can seem like magicians or robots. Most of the time, the most efficient people you meet have managed to find ways to overcome procrastination and other challenges.

We left the most important tip for the last: Know when to ask for help.

Smart people ask for help. Productive people admit when they don’t know something. When you ask for help instead of trying to struggle through something on your own, you save time and money. Make sure you know who and what your resources are — and make asking for help a habit. You can reach out the Savvy team to help you with automating, providing template, courses etc to keep your Bookkeeping Business and you Productive.

If you’d like to learn more about Why a Website is a Must For Your Bookkeeping Business and Bookkeeping Business Workflows, be sure to tune into The Bookkeepers’ Voice

Episode 83 3 Reasons Why All Bookkeepers Need a Bookkeeping Website to hear The Savvy Bookkeepers business development leader, Angie Martin and Mia Coghlan talk about how to Streamline Your Bookkeeping Business with the Help of Your Website

If you’d like help with your goals you can book a FREE initial consultation with me (Angie), or email me directly at  if you’re interested in a mentoring session to get you on  track and focused.

If you are a Bookkeeper who otherwise needs help with Savvy’s Marketing or Streamlining your Bookkeeping services, such as; Sales, Marketing, Website, Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Business Logo and more, please get in contact.

Angie

Some important Links:

https://hive.com/blog/productivity-tips/
https://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/top-10-tips-for-productivity.html
https://www.activecampaign.com/blog/habits-of-highly-productive-people
https://www.scienceofpeople.com/productivity/
https://medium.com/@dariusforoux/my-20-best-productivity-tips-of-all-time-ea2f5fa8bc4f

Priorities Masterclass: https://thesavvybookkeeper.com.au/priorities-masterclass/
Stress Test: https://thesavvybookkeeper.com.au/business-stress-test/
Templates: https://thesavvybookkeeper.com.au/bookkeeping-templates/

 

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Sharon Casagrande
Sharon Casagrande
04:46 02 Apr 20
Amy and her team are fantastic to work with. I don't know how I would have set up my business without their help. ... They are a great support to the bookkeeping industry.read more
Katia Chehade
Katia Chehade
04:25 02 Apr 20
Amy Hooke and her team at The Savvy Bookkeeper have been invaluable to my business especially with helping me change... from hourly billing, to offering packages. I also currently attend Co-working Groups which are for 'working on my business'. It's a really supportive and encouraging group, where we can brainstorm ideas, and work on things like streamlining of my business processes. For any bookkeeper looking for assistance in these areas, I recommend The Savvy Bookkeeper.read more
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Kristy Fairbairn
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With the help of The Savvy Bookkeeper team, my business was able to double it's turnover in the second year, and have... the confidence to keep growing. I love that the team don't stop providing support, and that you can opt in to various relevant sessions and products along the way. They really are an extension of my business, and I am so grateful for their ongoing support.read more
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Paula Wyeth
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Amy and her team have such a weatlh of knowledge, I am very grateful having the Savvy Team as a resource to assist and... nurture my BAS Agent journey. Thanks Amy.read more
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Hannah Langlois
04:18 01 Apr 20
Fantastic resources! The team are really friendly and helpful. Super supportive of bookkeepers and small business... owners.read more
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