10 Great Apps for Small Businesses

As running a business can be crazy busy we want to share with you the 10 best apps for business to improve productivity. These apps will help you manage and improve time management, social media, finance and staff management.  

Asana

Time/Project Management

Asana is a wonderful tool that allows for teams to effectively allocate tasks, create to-do’s, reminders, due dates, messenger and extra notes to complete tasks in record time. This app allows teams and manger to monitor progress of major goals broken down into achievable tasks on the go to ensure completion.

Plann

Social Media Management

Plann is perfect for Small Businesses, allowing them to pre-design, plan, visualise and schedule social media posts for Instagram which ensure that posts and branding are kept consistent. Plann’s format allows for drag and drop, compose captions, schedule release and save hashtags allowing entrepreneurs to design content weeks in advance and tweak until perfect.

QuickBooks

Finance and accounts management

QuickBooks is the number one go to accounting app for Small Businesses as it welcomes the opportunity of running your business accounts from anywhere. QuickBooks allows for easy access to your businesses profit and loss statements, expenses, invoices and account balances. This app allows for Small Business owners to have more control over their accounts but with the freedom of anytime, anywhere.

Dropbox

Store and share files

Dropbox is the best program that allows for files to be stored and shared online from any technology platform to numerous individuals allowing for easy access, multiple users and a decreased risk of losing work.

MailChimp

Email Marketing

MailChimp is changing the way of email marketing as it allows for mass marketing, tracking of subscribers and campaigns and creates reports to see the progress of your marketing. This mass email marketing tools allows emails to be personalised and sent to all your customers allowing you to stay front of mind with a positive brand image.

Canva

Graphic design and Photo Editing

Canva is one of the best, easy to use graphic design tools which allows for small businesses to create beautiful professional designs with minimal to no cost. With over a million layouts, stock photos and illustrations available to choose from, it has become an easy task to design a professional, flawless and memorable design for your business.

Deputy

Staff Management

Deputy is the new simplified staff management app that allows you to manage all your staff and timetables easily from anywhere. This application has become the solution for employee scheduling, time and attendance, team communication, tasks lists and payroll. With these business aspects, so readily available it has made paying staff, covering and swapping shifts and organising team discussions easy.

Evernote

Idea Management

Evernote is the go to application to organise and manage your professional and private projects that you are juggling. This app allows you to take notes, create to-do lists and save any great websites and then have them available for access over multiple devices.

Meeting Pad

Meeting Management

Meeting Pad will soon become your new best friend as it is specifically designed to make your business meetings easier with meeting lists, actions, attendees, minutes, camera and recorder. All these aspects that are available ensure that your meetings run effectively and efficiently and all information and topics of conversation are recorded.

LinkedIn

Social Networking

LinkedIn is the new social media of choice for professionals as it allows for individuals to upload their training and credentials and connect with other like minded individuals to increase social networking and business connections. This network allows for job seeking, industry updates, news and allows you to build on your professional brand.

When used properly these apps have been found to be the most productive and useful apps for small business owners. These applications allow you to run your business mainly stress-free and save time where possible.

How to make your 8-hour day 100% productive

Many have written about time management, how to save time, make time and use time, but have you ever actually improved your time management after reading these pieces? After watching Laura Vanderkam’s Ted Talk on time management it is clear that time cannot be manipulated or tempted. But it can be prioritised.

Good time Management can be one of the most difficult things for an entrepreneur to grasp. With so many things to do, so many things to think about and so much happening at once, time management becomes essential.  So, here’s our basic guide to getting your time management right, so your business performs better and you get your sanity back!

If it matters, put it on the list. If it doesn’t matter, scratch it.

Laura talked about the importance of making time your own. You own your day and you must spend it the way you see fit. If it is a beautiful day, slip in a beach walk, don’t put off enjoying your life to tick off all your tasks on your list. Time is highly elastic and will stretch to fit in everything you want to achieve in your day if you prioritise.

If it’s an automatic task, scratch it.

Your to-do list should never include tasks that you would complete whether they are on the list or not. While you are at it, all the tasks that you are always putting off and know are never going to complete, scratch them off too. Your to-do list should be ruthless, and only include tasks that are essential and have a set deadline.

If you don’t get around to it, move it.

A to-do-list needs to be a moving beast. You need to be able to reflect at the end of the day and prepare the list for tomorrow. Don’t be afraid to shift things, but only do it when you have just cause – if you do it out of laziness nothing will ever work.

Give it a big tick.

Half of the difficulty when it comes to time management is we try to do too much and end up not doing anything at all. This in turn means we never feel a sense of satisfaction and completion. The first thing they teach you at boarding school is to get up and make your bed in the morning. Why? It means you start the day with accomplishment – and it makes it easier to keep on going.

Be ruthless with your time, get all the boring tasks that are not on your to-do list done first so that they are out of the way. Then, hit your to-do list in a time or importance prioritised order and slowly tick one job off after the other. Make sure your tasks are achievable, if they are too big, break them down into manageable steps, which is especially important when doing project work.  

So with a few simple and achievable changes to your time management, getting more out of your eight hours becomes realistic.

“We don’t build the lives we want by saving time, we build the lives we want and then time saves itself”- Laura Vanderkam

There are 168 hours in your week, subtract 40 hours for work, then subtract 56 hours for sleeping, that leaves you with 72 hours to spend your time how you want. - Laura Vanderkam