Running your own business is fantastic. Making the world a better place with your products and services is one of the opportunities that you have as an entrepreneur. This is also possible if you have a permanent job somewhere, but with your own business you can choose the course of action and determine the quality of your products and services. Webpuccino® stands for quality and service and we do our absolute best to excel in it. In this we also see the challenges that you encounter as an entrepreneur. Here are a few of the biggest challenges with effective solutions to work in a productive way.

Everything at once

If any of your clients has a problem, you obviously want to solve it as fast as possible. The challenge is that often you don’t work on just one project, but have several things going on. You can not do everything at once, especially when if you work alone or in a small team. It’s crucial to set priorities. That is why you can say in our Helpdesk how urgent your question is. Some issues have to be solved as soon as possible, but other tasks can also be carried out at a later time. Especially when suddenly many questions are being asked at the same time is it important to put them on a list with a priority or time when you’re going to pick it up. In this way you can continue to work in an organised manner and carry out the various tasks as quickly as possible. Do not try to remember it all without writing down, because then you forget things and you lose focus. When you get a question, put it on your To-do list and finish it in order of priority.

Distraction

There are so many means of communication today that customers can approach you in many different ways. A WhatsApp message, an E-mail, a Facebook message, the phone, FaceTime, Skype, SMS and so on. If you continuously respond to this immediately, you can not maintain focus and actually carry out your work. When you want to finish a project, put your phone away or turn off your e-mail client. It is of course important to be easily accessible, but it is also very productive to be able to work undisturbed for a period of time. A possible way to do that is to start working early. Before nine o’clock, not many people are at work yet and you can usually work focused without distractions. Timothy Ferriss recommends in the book ‘The 4-hour work week’ to schedule a fixed time for your e-mail. For example, you can choose to check your e-mail in the morning at half past nine, then again at the beginning of the afternoon and a third time at the end of the day. This works more efficiently than having your e-mail open continuously and always reacting immediately when you receive a notification, the same applies to WhatsApp and other messages. Most cases can wait a while and do not require a direct answer. So instead of reacting immediately, you can better choose fixed moments to communicate, so that you can do it with focus and not be distracted.

Working reactively

You can have your planning be determined by what comes your way, for example by first checking your e-mail in the morning and then planning your day based on what’s in your inbox. The problem with this way of working is you that let other people make your schedule and you are being completely reactive. That way you go in all directions without having a real focus. A better strategy is to determine at the start of the day what you are going to work on that day, regardless of what questions and messages show up. This way you set your priorities and you work in a goal-oriented way. If you determine in the morning the two or three most important tasks for that day and leave some room for unexpected things, you know in advance what you are going to do that day and you can make a better planning.

Focus

Actually, these three challenges come down to the same point, it is all about keeping your focus. If you do that, you can serve your customers better and faster than if you try to do everything simultaneously and immediately. So make your plan in the morning, try not to do everything at once and make sure you’ll have periods during the day when you can work without distraction.