6 Super Simple Strategies for Successful Entrepreneurs

Running your own business can be incredibly rewarding, but also incredibly stressful if you’re unable to address the constant barrage of challenges coming your way. When that happens, it’s time to step back, reassess your priorities, and make changes for the better.

In this article, we’ll share 6 useful strategies to help you restore your sanity, improve your efficiency at the workplace, and ultimately move the business needle forward.

Let’s take a look!

Table of Contents

1. First things first – set some priorities!

By this point, you’re probably aware of just how difficult it is to keep a business afloat in the long term. In fact, according to a recent report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1 in 5 U.S. businesses don’t make it past their first year, with 30.6% falling flat past their second year. We’re sure you can agree those are some disheartening metrics!

However, if you learn how to prioritize your tasks from the onset, you can easily increase your chances of success. Here is how you can do that right now:

Stop multitasking. Even though hustle culture would have you believe that multitasking is the key to living a fulfilled life, that’s far from the case. In fact, the only thing you’re guaranteed to get eventually is severe burnout. Instead of trying to write an article, answer an email, and have a phone call all at once, set time blocks for each activity and fully focus your attention to get better – and faster – results.
Make a to-do list. It could be day-based, week-based, or even hour-based, the point is to become more organized by knowing what you need to do at all times. By making a to-do list, you also ensure that you won’t forget something important along the way and can figure out which tasks actually matter to your business (like paying your suppliers on time, for instance). And then there’s also the satisfaction of crossing items off your list and feeling productive.
Move the heaviest boulder first. Armed with your to-do list, try getting into the habit of tackling the hardest task for the day as soon as you enter the office. The reason for this is simple – most people feel the most energized and productive up until lunchtime, so by taking out the hardest task for the day first thing in the morning, you’ll secure yourself a huge win that you can then point to and be proud of.

2. Organize your workspace

Sometimes, work can find us literally buried under mountains of paperwork, which could be distracting, to say the least, not to mention unsanitary as dust inevitably builds up. But while grabbing a mop and cleaning things up is a good start, there are other much more important things you can do that will lead to better efficiency.

One of the easiest things you can do that will also have a noticeable impact on your quality of work is to digitize your files so that they no longer take up physical space. You can do that by scanning your physical documents, which will then help you create an easily searchable database.

The next step you can take is to convert all your existing digital files to a single file format that can be easily shared and viewed by anyone and from any device. You’ve guessed it – we’re talking about PDFs! This is where having capable PDF software, such as PDF Extra, can bring incredible value to your business as it will allow you to easily create, edit, and share documents, saving you a lot of time and effort.

Here are some ways in which PDF Extra can boost business efficiency:

Create documents from scratch: create professional-looking documents that are easy to read and understand. This can help you impress clients and customers and can give your business a more professional image. If you have a scanner, you can also use PDF Extra to quickly digitize your paperwork and make it fully searchable and editable. Or you can just download the app and use your camera – whatever works for you.
Quickly edit PDFs: If you need to make changes to an existing document, PDF Extra allows you to do so quickly and easily. You can alter text, images, or even the entire formatting directly within the PDF file. You can also organize your files on a structural level, for instance, change the page order or add and remove pages at will.
Fill & sign documents: use PDF Extra’s intuitive built-in tools to sign that stack of contracts ASAP, without using real ink & paper.
Combine & compress PDFs: merge similar files together to better organize your workspace and compress them so that they take up less space on your device.
Share documents: share documents with others easily, without having to print out physical copies or send documents through snail mail.
Protect PDFs: security is paramount these days, which is why the software offers the option to set permissions passwords. You can also encrypt your files or sign them with a digital signature to verify that the PDF’s contents haven’t been altered by anyone else other than you.

3. Create a routine – and stick to it

Routines make the world go around. It’s the thing each and every one of us subconsciously reaches out to in order to automate repetitive processes and free up some precious brain processing power to tackle the challenges of the day. Here is how you can create a routine that works for you, rather than against you.

Take stock of your day. It may seem like everything in your office needs your urgent attention, but that’s not actually the case. If you find yourself reading emails or obsessively checking social media more often than you would like, then it’s time to reassess your priorities and work towards forming more productive habits.
Set time limits. You can take 10 minutes reading through emails or a whole hour. The more you chop up your tasks into manageable time chunks, the more work you’ll get done since procrastination and deadlines don’t really go along. Setting deadlines will also cure you of your perfectionism and you’ll learn to settle on “good enough”, which is vital if you want your business to thrive in the long term.
Use a calendar. Another great way to stay organized is to use a calendar. This will help you keep track of important deadlines, meetings, and appointments. Make sure to use a calendar that is easily accessible, whether it’s a physical calendar or a digital one. Also, say a hard no to unscheduled meetings, unless they’re absolutely necessary – the fewer things you have to sidetrack you from your goals, the better.

4. Delegate, delegate, delegate!

We really can’t stress this enough. When you’ve just started out, you may have gotten used to doing everything yourself. But as your business scales and expands, this approach is no longer viable – at least not if you want to keep your health and sanity intact.

That’s why you need a team of loyal employees with varied expertise to help you get crucial tasks off your plate. For instance, you might need a marketing or sales department, or perhaps you’re tired of filing your taxes late at night and need an accountant who not only does this faster, but also loves what they do and so you’ll get better results.

In addition to giving you peace of mind and letting you focus on what you do best, having a solid team behind your back means that you can work on several specialized tasks all at once, which is what true multitasking is all about.

5. Automation is your friend

When most entrepreneurs hear about automation, they probably envision long and sleepless coding sessions. The good news is that there are many user-friendly apps out there that have simplified this process to an almost absurd degree, so you don’t exactly have to be an IT guru to get the ball rolling.

If you feel too intimidated by automation, just start small and go from there. For instance, instead of trying to create a complex email autoresponder network, start with automating the very first email your clients will receive once they buy your product or subscribe to your service. Seems like a much simpler task, doesn’t it?

And if you still worry that you won’t make sense of the new tech that’s out there, you can always hire someone else to do it for you. Trust us, the initial investment will be worth it once you see those ROI numbers go up!

6. Keep a spending tab

It’s easy to get all excited and spend a bunch of money on specialists and equipment you don’t necessarily need right now. So, before you do any improvements to your workflow, whether this involves buying several subscriptions to various cloud services, hiring new employees, or upgrading your printers at the office, think if these decisions will really benefit your business based on solid data or if you just feel it will because others do it too.

For example, maybe you don’t need to upgrade your printers at all since you already have a handy PDF reader, such as PDF Extra. Or maybe you’re spending too much on a department or a service that doesn’t bring in too much money. The best way to catch any money pits that might escape your sight is by making a list of all your expenses and trying to identify which items bring your business forward and which hold it back from achieving its true potential.

Final words

Running a business hides its fair share of risks, but you can easily mitigate them by setting some priorities, forgetting about multitasking (unless you work as a team), and making a to-do list. The second stage is to use software like PDF Extra to digitize and convert all your files to PDFs so that they can be easily shared, edited, and organized.

Finally, you need to come up with an efficient routine that you then have to follow religiously and also learn how to let go of your ego and delegate tasks that would otherwise slowly burn you out and generally distract you from doing what you do best. Do all of this, and you just might avoid the traps that so many businesses around the world fall prey to!