Did you end the year feeling tired and stressed? Did you have to sacrifice time relaxing with family and friends because you had work to do over the festive holidays? Then our self-care resolutions are a must!

Learn to delegate

As a small business owner, it’s easy to convince yourself that you should do everything, and that only you can do it right. It’s also easy to become convinced that doing everything yourself is the most cost-effective and efficient way of getting it done.

Yet it can be far better to delegate some of your tasks to others and focus on the main role of your business. Admin tasks can be performed more swiftly and proficiently by someone who specialises in admin; qualified book-keepers and accountants will do a better job of handling your finances, and in a fraction of the time it takes you.

You can employ someone part time, either on-premises or as a remote worker, or opt to outsource some of your work to an agency, company or a freelancer. Whichever option you choose, it can save you money, time and stress in the long run, and leave you free to:

• Focus on providing the products and services that form the core of your business
• Work on promoting, growing and developing your business
• Take time out – vital to recharge your batteries and refresh yourself mentally. Your business will benefit from this just as much as you will.

Learn to automate

Automation can help you in much the same way as delegation can – by saving you money, time and stress. Investigate how using alternative services and technology could speed up and simplify your business processes.

Think about areas such as social media, picking, packaging, labelling, delivery, responding to customers, appointment making; are these areas all as efficient as they could be? How could automating them save you time? Many small businesses are now using cloud accountancy services, too.

Whether it’s using local couriers or new software, reassessing how you do things and trying something new could enable you to be less hands-on – and make your business more efficient and/or more cost-effective.

Learn to establish boundaries

It’s far too easy, when we work for ourselves, to let our work life bleed over into our home life (and vice versa).

While flexibility is often touted as one of the positives of working for yourself, it can easily become a negative if you’re unable to switch off from work and leave it behind – or if you’re continually making space in your working day for domestic or personal tasks.

Think about where your boundaries lie and how they may need to be moved to make your working day more productive and your down-time more relaxing.

Responsibility can weigh heavily on you as a small business owner, and life can feel very lonely. Letting technology automate some of your time-consuming tasks and delegating some of that responsibility to another human being can make work less onerous and more sociable.

Wouldn’t it be great to end this year a little less tired and stressed?

Want to get automated in 2018? We offer free cloud accounting software for small businesses and freelancers that makes handling your finances a breeze. Sign up now to kick-start your New Year!