Freeing up your real time

Feb 12 2008 by Karen Dent, The Journal

MORE than a third of small business owners are wasting their time dealing with administrative details rather than their firm’s main issues.

Research suggests entrepreneurs are being waylaid by activities that do not help their business to grow.

According to the study by Enterprise Rent-A-Car, just 12% of small business owners are able to devote most of their time to the core needs of their business, while 35% spend more than 20% of their working day on tasks which are not key to their business’ bottom line.

The study’s authors pointed to the fact that two out of three of the UK’s start-up businesses end in failure, and said that the owners of small firms may be spending too much time concentrating on administration and not enough time on the important issues.

A lack of resources means owners often have to spending their time on tasks such as fixing IT problems and ordering office stationery.

Spokesman Rob Ingram said: “There are tens of thousands of entrepreneurs working every day to propel companies to success.

“For many of these individuals, there aren’t enough hours in the day. If you can free up 10% of your time in the year, that could translate to more business wins, newer products and better service for your customers.”