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Time Management
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Article 2: Automate Tasks
Automate repetitive tasks. You simply set up the systems to go on autopilot, giving you more time to tend to important business. The minutes you save add up over time. Try some of these ideas:
Pay bills online
Pay bills for your telephones, credit cards, magazine subscriptions and more with a click of your mouse. If your bank allows free online bill pay, use it. If not, go to the individual sites of each of the providers where you can pay online for free.
Bookmark those sites under your Internet browser favorites heading of “online bill pay.” That will make navigation go quickly each month. Better yet, set up automatic payments that are regularly deducted from your bank account. Pay taxes online
Pay your taxes online at www.eftps.com. This is the Web site for the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS). You can schedule all four estimated tax payments in one session. You can also make payments for other taxes, including employer’s quarterly taxes (Form 941), employer’s annual unemployment tax (Form 940), quarterly excise tax (Form 720), partnership withholding tax (Form 8813) and more. Subscribe to e-mail lists
Don’t waste time searching the Web for information you need. To keep up with industry and small-business trends, subscribe to e-newsletters. These deliver news right to your desktop. Be discriminating. Subscribe only to those that consistently give you the information you need. If you travel frequently, sign up online to have hotels, airlines and rental car companies e-mail you discounts and specials. 4 more automation tips
Program your cell phone (and your desk phone) with frequently called numbers to save dialing time. Use voice mail. If you need to focus on a project without interruptions, let calls go to voice mail. You’ll complete projects faster. Reduce the number of customer calls you have to field each day by answering frequently asked questions on your Web site. Post on your Web site a map to your business location, hours of operation, product brands you carry, services you offer and other generic information. Use e-mail autoresponders to alert people when you’re out of the office. By setting up an automatic response, you won’t have to handle each e-mail separately.
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