Nurses are master multi-taskers, and this is no different when a nurse decides to become a business owner. Productivity and efficiency are the norm for nurses and overflows into their business life, but there’s a fine line between being productive and overworking yourself.

Many business owners try to make the most of their time during the day, especially when you’re first starting out and still work a day job. Since nurses are notorious multi-taskers, it’s common to try and do everything yourself when running your business. I want to let you in on a little secret when I started my business on the side many moons ago…I realized quickly that I needed help and outsourced as much as possible.

Since I invested in my business early on, it decreased my stress, increased my productivity, and allowed me to increase my profits quicker than if I had done everything by myself. Another thing I found out is that even if I can do “everything” I’m not good at everything, and it’s best to let the professionals do tasks that I’m not that great at.

If you’re looking to improve your business productivity, take a look at these three tips and implement them:

Outsource, Outsource, Outsource

When I started my business, I found out that I couldn’t do it all and started outsourcing small tasks; graphic design, social media posting, and video editing. My strength as a business owner lies in brainstorming products and services for my audience – not the actual creation oftentimes. As CEO, there are absolute things that I must manage, while other things can get outsourced.

For example, I record all my educational YouTube videos but don’t do the editing. The videos I record are no less my work because I outsourced the editing to someone who can do it better than me. I’m sure if I studied, I could figure out my own editing, but my editor does a better (and quicker) job than I would simply because he’s a professional and does video editing all day.

Rather than being saddled with technical tasks and learning new skills that won’t move them ahead in business, smart business owners embrace their limitations and find other people to outsource these tasks to. What takes one expert an hour to do can easily take a non-savvy business owner 5 hours to complete. Is that a really good use of your time?

To find people to outsource to, ask other business owners for referrals and browse sites like Fiverr and Upwork. Once you find someone, vet them and their skills (ask for samples) before hiring. Even if you’re hiring these people as contractors, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hold them to standards lower than a full-time employee for your company. 

Kick Your Bad Habits

Sometimes it’s easy to fall into doing things the same way you’ve always done them simply out of habit. There’s always more than one way to skin a cat, and it’s no different when running a business. Are there any ways you can make your business more efficient? Are there things you’re doing, like handwriting business content plans when you can use a software program or app like Airtable? Delegate tasks; find a new software; plan out new programs or updates; these are all things you can start doing today, not spending money unnecessarily but breathing some more time and excitement into your life.

Create an Actual Plan

Use a project management program like Trello or just a paper planner to list your projects in a calendar and work towards achieving those goals. A saying that I always tell new business owners is that a business without a plan plans to fail. I was one of those business owners who didn’t have a proper plan when I started out and wasted many years and made nearly no money in my business.

I didn’t have any direction and was running my business aimlessly. I didn’t get serious about planning my business until I left my full-time nurse practitioner job to run my business full-time. Your perspective about business changes when it goes from a side hustle to your sole source of income. A business plan is your blueprint for reaching your goals, no matter how crazy they seem. Looking at this plan daily will give you something to focus on, therefore increasing your daily productivity.

Overwhelmed by planning out your business? 

Have no fear! I’ve created a Business Productivity and Time-Management planner to help you become more productive in business. In this planner, I cover exactly how to set your goals and how to break those goals down into doable action steps. While everyone’s goals will be different, we all have to create a roadmap and learn how to take real action. There’s no excuse not to grow your business this year! Learn more here.