Want to Save Time and Reduce Stress? Automate or Outsource These Tasks

Thin line flat design about business project process. From idea to the launch, through the planning, design, test and production.

Thin line flat design about business project process. From idea to the launch, through the planning, design, test and production.

When you’re running a startup, you typically only have limited funds available and want to handle most tasks yourself. However, an entrepreneur’s time is limited, no matter how many late nights or weekends you work, so it’s very important to constantly find ways to be more productive. This not only ensures more tasks actually get done, but helps you to stay healthy, passionate about your venture, and connected to your life outside the business.

While you might struggle to let some things go or to pay for services when you think you should save as much money as possible, these days it is easier and more affordable than ever to outsource and automate business functions in a systemized way.

Whether you are completely new to delegating or are already making use of some technological tools, there are sure to be a number of things on your to-do list you can go about handing over in order to claw back time and to concentrate on working on your business rather than in it. This is particularly the case when it comes to regular, simple, yet time-consuming tasks.

If you’re looking to up the productivity in your venture and enjoy some work-life balance, read on for a few jobs you should consider automating or outsourcing today.

Payroll

One common task most people don’t enjoy doing, that can also be easily outsourced, is payroll. There are many great tech programs on the market these days, especially accounting ones, which can automate and simplify this process for you. For example, once you have inputted an employee into a system, you can program the tech to automatically create and email pay slips each pay period, plus the annual documents required for tax and accounting purposes.

If your firm’s payroll is more complicated, or you want to take advantage of a service which can also handle other tasks like the setup of employee benefits and development of training programs, it pays to consider outsourcing the work to a payroll service company.

Apart from the time savings involved in doing this, and the fact that you can be sure important payroll functions are taken care of, you can also often enjoy cost savings. Due to the fact that payroll firms work for numerous clients and are specialists in the area, they can typically provide very affordable rates, and leave you and your team free to concentrate on other business activities.

Social Media

In this day and age, when social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and LinkedIn are bigger than ever, all businesses need to have a digital presence. Social media posts should be a key component of any marketing campaigns, and need to be done well. If you struggle to find the time to really commit to social media marketing, or simply don’t know how to effectively use the sites so that you get results, it may be time to outsource all or part of the work.

For starters, consider using some of the many great apps and websites which have been developed to help automate social media posting, relationship building, and analytics. There are programs, for example, which will post your updates for you automatically at pre-scheduled times and dates, so that you don’t have to be live on the sites each time; plus those which will make sure your content is shared to multiple networking sites at once. This can be a huge time saver.

You should also take a look at software which helps you work out the most shareable content for you to upload for your particular target market, and which will analyze the results of each of your posts so that you can see which keywords, images, videos, promotions, or other types of content work best. Keep an eye out, too, for programs which will help you to locate and connect with industry leaders and influencers in your field, or assist you with making your photographs and other graphics more memorable, beautiful and shareable.

Recruitment

Lastly, when it comes to hiring new staff members, don’t be afraid to get a little help so that you save yourself a whole heap of time. For example, one of the benefits of technological advances with regards to recruitment is that there are now affordable tech programs which can automate the sorting of job applications. You can use specialized software which will use criteria you input (think keywords, locations, and qualifications) to find a recommended shortlist of candidates.

These types of programs can also help with the creation of specific careers website pages, the set up and scheduling of interviews, applicant tracking, and communication. You will also find software which will streamline and automate tasks such as shift scheduling and the tracking of staff attendance, sales results, and holiday accumulation.

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