5 productivity hacks to make your online business more profitable

Ever felt overwhelmed with your to-do list and haven’t known where to start?

This blog post was first published on 2 March 2021

For many business owners, overwhelm can really real kill their productivity and have a big knock on impact on their profits. Just as much as we like to make legal as simple and easy as possible for you, we believe business that should be the same. Today on the blog we’re going to be sharing 5 tips to help you to take strategic action and move the needle forward in your business.

If you’d rather watch a video on these hacks, check out our Youtube Video where Lucy guides you through 5 simple productivity hacks to make running an online business easier and more profitable.

1.Get everything down on a list & prioritise

One of the worst things we see happen to many business owners is that they get so stuck in their overwhelm that they don’t know what to do next or how they’re going to get everything done. When this happens, it’s important to pause and take the time to get out a piece of paper, mark out some columns and make a list or if you prefer to have everything at your finger tips online, use an App for lists such as Trello or an alternative. Then get everything out of your head and onto your list and we mean everything. Everything from client work and everything relation to the backend of your business such as legal, sorting out any systems, funnels, marketing, as wells as any appointments and we’re not just talking business. Mark in booking in any zoom catch ups with friends and distanced walks and booking in that hair appointment you’re looking forward to having when we come out of lockdown. Let’s face it, for many of us would really like a hair cut after all this time and hairdressers are going to be very busy when they re-open again, yet they’re the kind of appointments which can get forgotten about with everything else we want to get done.

Then it’s time to start prioritising. We suggest using the RAG system, whereby you categorise things as red, amber or green in order of urgency, colour code them on your physical or electronic and then look closer at the deadlines and work out when you’re going to do each of the tasks. If getting everything done to that time frame isn’t realistic right now, assess whether you need to speak to anyone to move things around or whether you need you could ask for further support from your team to get everything thing done on time. Then break down each list. For example, if you’re doing email marketing it’s not just about setting up a list, it’s also about researching backend connectivity, create the opt in etc or getting someone on your team to do it for you if you’re at that stage of your business. Ensure that you’re writing out a to do list at least weekly and keeping this up to date if anything changes.

2. Record your time

Many business owners fall into the trap of spending lots of time being busy, but not that productive. Record the time you’re making and we mean all of it. The time from the initial consultation, email, client calls. Make a note on a paper of when you start and finish a task or download an App to help you to record your time. This is an important game changer. Many people end up realising that they’re spending far longer than they realise on a task. You may end up realising that a piece of client was taking 2 hours when it’s actually a whole day of work for you. Make sure that all work you are doing in relation to each client or project is included in your pricing structure. If you’re always busy and never quite making as much money as you’d like, make sure you’re really recording all of your time and that your pricing covers all the time you are spending.

3. Batch your time

It’s so easy to find yourself switching between tasks when you have so many moving parts and aspects of your business. It’s time put some boundaries in place with yourself and with other people to support you to get what you need to done. Stop switching between projects and communication channels. Stop using social media in a way that isn’t really serving your business growth. Stop checking your emails and messages so frequently. Stop allowing yourself to be constantly interrupted by answering the phone here there and everywhere. Record an up to date voice mail with your availability, and do this each week if you need to.

Schedule time in your diary to attend any live trainings or put time aside to catch up on recordings. Assess which tasks you can do whilst multi-tasking to free up your time and which ones require you to sit down so you can solely focus on them. There may be some tasks that you can multi-task, for example you may like to watch certain business development trainings you can easily listen to when you’re doing the dishes, ironing or hoovering or listening to personal development podcasts while you’re on a walk. If you’re learning how to do something new or setting something up, schedule time in your diary to sit down and give it your full attention.

Another game changer is to batch write social media and blog posts, as well as emails to your email list when you know you feel the most creative, so that you know you have a bank of content ready rather than finding yourself struggling for content. For example, that might look like having a list of inspirational quotes and content ideas or written posts that you can come back to. Write down all the substantial tasks in your business and set certain jobs for certain days. When you are planning content, bear in mind your plan for the year, so that you know what’s coming up for each quarter, including any launches so that everything flows and supports you reaching your business goals. It’s helpful to work backwards from a launch date and work out when certain emails need to be sent, and when certain social media and blog posts need to be written to warm up and nurture and covert your potential customers and clients.

4. Outsource and invest

When you ask successful business owners how they got to where they are now, many of them emphasise that they outsource so that they can free up time and spend as much time as they can in their zone of genius. Lots of them have at least a virtual assistant, if not a full time. They’re not spending on Canva, scheduling appointments or sorting out setting up funnels. They’re doing the client work or creating products based on their expertise. Whilst we’re here, so many people waste so much time stressing over trying to do the legal side of things themselves and then worrying if they’ve got it right. Let us help you to take that off your mind and free up more time for you to stay in your zone of genius and check out our legal templates here. You may also want to receive support you with your diary, video and podcast editing, your social media management, copyrighting and online business support. That doesn’t mean that you can’t do something, but there are people who could do it quicker and better and it would free up time for to be in your zone of genius, which is a far more profitable way of spending your time. If you’re looking to get support but are not looking to employ a member of staff, but are looking to work with a freelancer, check out our template freelancer contract here.

5. Get disciplined and forget the 4-hour week.

Here at Lucy Legal we believe the idea of 4 hour working week is a load of BS. Although it’s important to not hustle constantly, it’s hard to find a passionate business owner making lots of impact who works as little as 4 hours per week. There’s also a lot of talk about passive income in the online space and it’s important to emphasise that it’s not realistic to think you can barely and have a 6 figure business if you’re just starting out. You need to put the ground work, do the work required and put the systems in. For example, if you want to create an online course, you have to spend time initially doing market research, planning and creating the content, marketing and getting everything set up on the backend of your business.

We hope that this week’s blog has been helpful, and do feel free to drop us an email at [email protected] if there’s any other topics in relation to legal or business that you’d like us to cover on the blog.

Team Lucy Legal x