This is part one in a two-part series. You can read part two here.
Anyone who has run an eCommerce business knows it’s no small challenge to fit everything that needs to happen in the day into a neat 24-hour package, but it’s not an impossible task. After all, some eCommerce business owners manage to do it, don’t they?
You may feel totally overwhelmed right now, but take a few minutes to consider these three top time-saving tips:
Get Organized. Your office is an explosion of last week’s take out containers, books on every conceivable topic, clothing you may or may not have worn—and that’s just the top layer. Your scheduling is even worse!
If you want to be able to really seize your day, you’ve got to get a handle on your mess, even if it’s only to downgrade it to a state of controlled chaos. Tidy up, find a place for all the things that don’t have a spot (and get a trash bin!), then get cracking on your digital pile. Tools like Plan, Google Calendar, Sunrise and Do will help you put all the random bits of your day in their proper places.
Use Email Templates. Your customers probably send a lot of the same emails over and over again, even if you’ve managed to build a pretty comprehensive FAQ page for your eCommerce site. You can still provide excellent customer service without sacrificing your sanity or your time by designing some custom email templates that include many basic answers to inquiries using a tool like Gorgias for Gmail. If the inquiry requires a more personal touch, the customer can simply reply to the email for further instructions.
Eliminate Distractions. Distractions are the biggest productivity killer in the age of the Internet. It’s harder to silence the sound of your kids asking to borrow the car or the dog barking, but you can quiet social media and block YouTube for a few hours to force yourself to focus on the project at hand. Often, a few hours of silence are all you really need to get something substantial accomplished, so next time you find yourself floundering give blocking apps Freedom, SelfControl or Cold Turkey a try.
It’s true that there are only so many minutes in a day, but with the right approach you can make those minutes count for a lot more and turn into significantly larger order fulfillment at the end of your day. After all, that’s the goal, isn’t it? Stay tuned for the second installment of this two-part series, where we’ll explore even more tools to help make your day extra productive.
