Admin ( running a business )

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Cuchilo

Prize winning member X2
Location
London
Not the forum kind :thumbsup:
Anyone else have trouble juggling admin tasks ?
I seem to lose about two days a week to it and this week is just silly . I have done about half a days work this week and the rest of my time has been running around , sorting things , making calls and ordering stuff . Its now Thursday afternoon and I'm just about to start what I should have started on Monday morning :angry:
I'm not sure getting someone in to help out is the answer as the tasks are all related to the job at hand . So you would need to know the job to do the admin ( if that makes sense ? ) Then if you knew the job you wouldn't be doing someone elses admin . :unsure:
 
Location
Loch side.
Been there, done that. There is no way to get out of it other than to hire someone. However, unlike your feared scenario above, that hire will relieve you to get the time to do what you have to do. You'll be surprised how much you can delegate with just a little bit of supervision. As time goes by, the supervision is less and the quality input from the hireling better. At the other end of the spectrum they run off and start off in competition with you but by then they have probably priced themselves out of your business and time for a new hireling. Do it.

Further, automate as much as possible through clever PC work. Get yourself a little online accounting system and enter all your stock meticulously, no matter how much or how little. Set up automatic ordering and make your invoicing as easy as selecting items from stock, adding a quantity and sending.

Further, keep more stock. A one man business cannot run on the just-in-time (JIT) concept. Depending on your business, extra stock will cost you less to hold than your time schlepping around town buying trivialities as each new job comes online. Then when it all streamlines nicely, cut down on the services and items you supply to keep the stockholding down even further. In other words, when you start off on your own you have to be a bit of a generalist. But as you grow, you taper and become a specialist. This reduces admin even further.
 

Levo-Lon

Guru
The pleasures of the "my own business" im affraid.
if its book keeping you could get someone for a few hrs a week?
Paying staff and all the shoot that goes with it is a ball ache..
good luck ,the problem always has an answer, but its yours to find as all thevariables need weighing up before commiting. Make sure you know your rights regarding hiring full time.
can an agency help?
 
OP
OP
Cuchilo

Cuchilo

Prize winning member X2
Location
London
The problem is I have already tapered and become a specialist :laugh:
For example yesterday afternoon and this morning I have been ordering some cutters I need for a job . Yesterday was refining the details of the job so I knew what cutters needed to be made . Now I am refining the details of the cutters before they are made so they get made to my needs that keep changing when I get the revised drawings through and notice something else that may cause a problem . All this needs to be spot on as the cutters cost a bloody fortune and if I get it wrong I have to pay for them to be made again .
Now I'm stressed aswell :laugh:
 
Not the forum kind :thumbsup:
Anyone else have trouble juggling admin tasks ?
I seem to lose about two days a week to it and this week is just silly . I have done about half a days work this week and the rest of my time has been running around , sorting things , making calls and ordering stuff . Its now Thursday afternoon and I'm just about to start what I should have started on Monday morning :angry:
I'm not sure getting someone in to help out is the answer as the tasks are all related to the job at hand . So you would need to know the job to do the admin ( if that makes sense ? ) Then if you knew the job you wouldn't be doing someone elses admin . :unsure:
Where are you based because I know a person who runs a business helping out people just like you?
 
OP
OP
Cuchilo

Cuchilo

Prize winning member X2
Location
London
Where are you based because I know a person who runs a business helping out people just like you?
I'm in London but you have just made me think . I may be better off just doing the admin and hiring someone to do the work . Then join in when I'm not admining
 
I'm in London but you have just made me think . I may be better off just doing the admin and hiring someone to do the work . Then join in when I'm not admining
Ha! PM me if you're interested. She runs a virtual PA company which can be short-term (project based) or long term.
 

jonny jeez

Legendary Member
I'm in London but you have just made me think . I may be better off just doing the admin and hiring someone to do the work . Then join in when I'm not admining
I was going to suggest just that...or promote someone who does the job...to manager, pass the responsibility of getting cutters and the like down to him/her...and hire a new trainee, who you can train with all the time you save.

Cheap hire cost solution
 
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