We’ve all heard the phrase ‘work smarter, not harder,’ but if we’re honest, the truth is that sometimes it’s hard to know exactly where to start, especially if you’ve got to manage all kinds of things like deadlines, clients, and loads of data. That’s why finding ways to make all that easier is a great idea, but it can be a tricky thing to do as well. Luckily, there are some fantastic tools that can help you work smarter, not harder, and they’re the ones you’ll need to know more about. With that in mind, keep reading to find out more about them and how they can help you and your business.
Task Management Apps
Sometimes the biggest struggle isn’t the work itself, but staying on top of all the tasks you need to juggle, but there are things that can help you, and they’re known as task management apps. There are plenty of them to choose from (Trello, Asana, and ClickUp are just a few examples), and they’ll help you keep things a lot more organized which will ensure you don’t spend loads of time searching for what you need and not doing the work you need to do. These platforms can help you create task lists, set deadlines, assign tasks to team members, and track progress, and you can do it all from one place, which isn’t just helpful but is sure to save time and make your business feel more professional as well.
When you’ve got one (and you do actually only need one because if you go overboard, it’s going to get messy, confusing, and time-consuming again) of these apps in place, you’ll be able to log in in the morning and see everything that needs to be done for the day or week ahead, and you’ll be able to tick things off when they’re complete, which is great for your motivation and will show you the fantastic progress you’re making, so it’s a win-win no matter how you look at it.
CRM Systems
When you’re managing multiple clients, each with unique needs, timelines, and expectations, it’s easy for things to slip through the cracks, and when that happens, it’s hard – perhaps even impossible – to get everything moving in the way it should again. You might find you lose customers and your business’s reputation suffers as a result, which in turn means that you’ll lose money and your competitors can use that to their advantage and get ahead of you. It might even mean you have to close altogether, which is the last thing you’ll be planning for – and it can all come from one missed detail that seems so small at the time. It’s quite scary to think about it.
Well, it doesn’t have to be scary because there are tools available to help you, and, what’s even better, is that they can be specific to your industry, ensuring you’ve got all the things you need to work well and get ahead.
One tool that’s really useful is a customer relationship management (CRM) system. These are designed to keep all your customer information and data in one place, and it can include everything from contact details to banking information to deadlines and all correspondence… It really is a one-stop-shop for helping customers and giving your business a good reputation. And as we said, specific CRMs are very handy indeed; getting a CRM system for accountants, for example, is a good move – you’ll be able to see who needs a follow-up, who’s waiting for information, whose information you’re waiting for, and so on. Plus, a good CRM can work with your email system and calendar, so you’ll never miss an important date again!
Cloud Storage
Staying organized with files, especially across multiple projects, can be challenging – there’s just so much of it, and even a relatively small business is sure to come across issues when it comes to keeping files not only organized but protected with all that information potentially just lying about, anyone could make use of it, and not for particularly positive reasons either. And if that were to happen, and some client information like personal details got into the wrong hands, your business would be in a lot of trouble and financially it could be ruined. So it’s wise to think of how to stop that from happening, just as it’s wise to ensure you keep things organized.
The answer to both of these issues is cloud storage, with solutions like Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive all being excellent examples of the kind of systems you could put in place to help you. What’s great about these is that you can store, share, and access files no matter where you are and only any device (you just need the log in details), and not only that, but your team can have the same access (or limited access if that makes more sense). In other words, collaboration and remote working become a lot easier with cloud storage in the picture.