Here are a range of top tips from small business owners across the country when it comes to working smarter, whether that be through strategic thinking, setting boundaries or minimising distractions.
Top tips for… prioritisation, clarity and strategic thinking
Don’t skip the strategy work: know your audience, know what you stand for, and what makes you different; it helps you stay laser-focused, gives you a north star and stops the busy work. And don’t be afraid to ask for help, outsource what you struggle with and bring in expertise to support you. It helps make your biz feel sustainable, lighter and ultimately more enjoyable.
Tania Chakraborti | Founder at Bravebird
Always ask yourself two questions: 1. What do I WANT to work on right now? and 2. What will get me closer to my goal, quickest right now? Those questions help you stop falling down rabbit holes of ‘busy’ work and make sure you actually ENJOY what you’re doing!
Jo Hooper | YOLO business coach
My top tip is to sort your goals by Inputs (e.g. Deep work for four hours), Outputs (e.g. Write one article), and Outcomes (e.g. Generate five leads this week). Otherwise, I find I can be focusing too much on the wrong activities.
Charli Hunt | The Lime One – LinkedIn CRM For LinkedIn’s Real People
If something on my list is a size large or extra large in my time but has minimal impact, I know that I need to make a change. If something has a lot of impact but doesn’t take much time, I know I should continue and potentially allocate more time. My work day is always busy, and doing a monthly time audit helps me make sure that the work I’m doing is helping achieve goals.
Michelle Rakshys | VP of Learning and Development at Cadence Leadership + Communication
Really and truly, the best thing you can do is ask “why?” If you don’t know “why”, you shouldn’t do it. Not only might there not be a reason to do it at all, but it might also not be the most effective way to get to that why.
Understanding the purpose behind something is what gives you the power to make it better. And on top of that, it helps with motivation. It’s pretty easy to fall out of fascination with a tick box. But to have a goal, to have ownership over an outcome, to actually make a difference? It’s a lot harder to lose excitement for that. So yeah, always ask why.
SJ Hood | Marketer | Writer | DEI & Ocean Speaker
Take the time to get 100% clear on what moves the needle. So much of my time over the years has been peddling for nothing. Now I make sure I’m clear on what I’m doing and why, and to what end, before I do anything. It can feel like there’s not enough time to put aside for this practice, but it will save you so much time in the long run, and be more effective too.
Kate Greenslade | The Women Entrepreneurs Group
For me, it usually comes down to three things:
1. Figure out what the client actually wants (not what they asked for)
Briefs are often symptoms of a problem, and the client doesn’t really know how to address it. If you can identify the real problem, you can suggest something better. The client gets a better outcome, you work on something you believe in, and you become the person who ‘just gets it’.
2. Reuse thinking
Templates are great, and they save time. But working smart comes down to recognising patterns. The fifth time you solve a problem, you shouldn’t still be starting from scratch.
3. Stop hunting for productivity hacks
Most of the time, the smartest move is depressingly simple: make a list of the important work and do it. You don’t need to optimise, rely on ‘systems thinking’ (whatever that is), colour-code everything – you just need to prioritise and actually do it.
You need to have worked hard before you can work smart (I forget who said that first). Do the grind, hit the mental blocks, spot the patterns, and manage the pushback. Once you’ve done it enough, you can phase out the fluff and noise and just get on with what matters.
Bill Hinchen | Biologist & science writer
Top tips for… working with your natural energy and rhythms
Work with your energy, not just your calendar. Humans naturally operate in 90-120 minute focus cycles (ultradian rhythms), yet many people try to power through for hours at a time. Scheduling your most important work into these peak energy windows, then taking short recovery breaks, leads to better focus, sharper thinking and far less burnout.
Sally Lovett | Founder of Stretching the City
Echoing a lot of commits here, for me it’s leaning into my natural rhythms. As a creative, learning to trust that the idea will come and allowing space to breathe in between. I’m easily distracted, though, so I recently brought a ‘brick’ that enables me to physically block all apps on my phone, so I can’t access them without walking to the ‘brick’ to reactivate it. It’s been a game-changer for low motivation admin tasks.
Hannah Cross-Phillipson | Freelance Live Events Creative Director
Work with your body clock and chronotype, not against it. As a night owl, I don’t book any morning appointments before 11am. This has become a strict non-negotiable boundary. I knew it before but would squeeze people in early to suit them and then feel rotten all day and crash and burn.
Do your creative work when you are most creative, for me that’s 3-7pm and 11pm-1am. If I get an idea at midnight, I roll with it.
7pm-10pm is gym and jacuzzi time – this is when my body wants to move. No 5am mornings here. The stronger I get physically, the better I perform mentally.
Have a jacuzzi- or find your alternative, a place to wind down and relax, turn your brain off or let your thoughts roam. I come up with some of my best ideas or solutions to problems in the jacuzzi!
Louise Mason | Marketing Director & Consultant
Time management is a crock of nonsense. The secret weapon to cracking on, on purpose, is energy management. If you manage your energy and focus on where you want to create the impact with the energy you have, then you win. (You then have to work on your boundary systems to also protect that energy like the valued asset it is.) Add in persistence, consistency and the right human scaffolding system, and you have the foundation stones to build, to grow and to scale.
Sarah Knight | Owner: FoundHER Fire
Work with your natural rhythms and actual priorities instead of trying to force yourself into someone else’s idea of productivity and success.
This is the case for your business in general, but also with your marketing (which is my area of expertise). If something feels forced, you’ll drag your feet and probably end up creating something worse. The work tends to be better – and much more sustainable – when you approach it in a way that feels properly aligned with yourself, your values, and your circumstances. It requires some trial and error to work out what that actually means in practice, but it’s worth the effort.
Sophie Turner | Strategic marketing support for purpose-driven orgs
Work with your chronotype and natural energy rhythms, take breaks, and make time for self-care – I know that when I take care of myself properly, my work is easier and the result is better. Also, it’s important to make time to review your systems regularly and improve them where you can so that work is more efficient.
Sarah Haler | Virtual Assistant
Top tips for… time blocking, timers and structured focus
Time blocking and an app on my phone, which I can click to give me 30 minutes undisturbed, has proved life-changing. Super simple, but it gives the headspace I need to move forward.
Becky Benbow | Fractional Operations Lead
I work smarter by using timers. Coaching is the core of my work, but the behind-the-scenes tasks like marketing, invoicing and writing still need to happen. I block dedicated time for them and set a timer. It keeps me focused and stops small tasks from taking over the day!
Fiorenza Rossini, PCC | Career & Leadership Coach for Working Parents
Time blocking works the best for me in terms of working smarter. I like to plan the week. I tend to do my planning at the end of the week, for the following week, so that I come back on Monday knowing exactly where I left off.
Raimonda Richardson | Marketing & Comms Consultant
When my creative brain is in full swing with ideas galore, and struggling to focus I work to a timer. Sometimes I’ll try to beat the clock, other times I know I won’t finish the task, but it gives me a set amount of time to focus on one thing. A great way to just get something started.
Fliss Lee | Brand Strategist + Coach
I could wax lyrical about this subject for a long time because I plan for the year, for the quarter, for the month, for the week and for the day, but I’ll stick to weekly planning.
Prioritise. And I mean really prioritise. You can’t have 20 priorities; pick two or three things that must get done this week.
Look at your calendar and see what’s scheduled. Decide what stays, what can be moved and what can be eliminated.
Set blocks of time to get the important work done. Big rocks first!
List smaller tasks that can be bundled together into logical blocks and schedule those in.
Don’t fill every hour of the day. Big tasks usually take longer than we plan for, there are interruptions and distractions, and life happens. Schedule in buffer time.
If you’re on social media for work, remember it’s not a pastime, it’s a business strategy. Think about who you’re connecting and engaging with and why. Set a time limit and a purpose for each session.
Sarah Marshall | Freelance copywriter
Top tips for… minimising distractions and setting digital boundaries
Working smarter for me comes down to keeping my focus. Very often, the biggest distraction would be a phone, so to combat this I have my phone on silent at all times, turn off social media notifications and set my phone to ‘Do not disturb’ mode during my work time. This saves a lot of energy that is needed for work.
Kristina Azarenko Sparks | The Honest Creatorpreneur
Turning off notifications on my phone was a game-changer. I did this one Christmas, and it gave my brain so much more runway for thinking that I never turned them back on again. I can, of course, still get to my email and messages. It’s just that I check them when it’s most convenient for my schedule. Rather than being continually beeped at!
Helen Reynolds | Copywriter for Google and customer-friendly content
This probably more of a tool than a tip, but I love Brain.fm. It gets me ‘unstuck’ when I’m in full procrastination mode. It basically uses music to help your brain get to a specific mental state. I don’t really understand the science behind it tbh, but it definitely seems to help.
Kate Duggan | Copywriter for charities, education providers and businesses that ‘do good’
Top tips for… systems, templates, process improvement and outsourcing
For me, working smarter means having systems in place before you get too busy and embracing AI. Most of us are already way behind – myself included – so spend time researching what it can do in your business to ultimately save time. And if it doesn’t exist, build it. Oh, and instead of positioning yourself as a market of one, try actually being a market of one. The way to stand out is to be different.
Stop starting from scratch! Every proposal, client onboarding, and monthly update used to begin with a blank page. Now I have templates for all of it and use AI for the first draft. I’m editing, not creating from nothing, and that shift alone saves a lot of time.
You should also systemise anything you do more than twice. If you’ve done a task once, that’s experience. Do it twice, and it’s a process waiting to be documented! Good systems are the closest thing you get to a second pair of hands.
Vicky Hannon | Marketing Strategist & Advisor for Service-Based Businesses
Think about the tasks you do again and again and find ways to cut down on the admin aspect of those repeatable tasks by creating templates – this could be documents, email responses, or invoicing.
Kyle Rushton McGregor | GA4, GTM and Looker Studio Consultant
If you use apps/software for your work, learn more about how to use them efficiently. There will be all sorts of useful time-saving things hidden away in manuals and menus that you’ve never looked at. Do an online course, or ask your peers for suggestions. Pick one new thing to try for each project until it becomes second nature.
Tanya Izzard | Indexer | literature, history, art, biography
Outsource the stuff you hate or struggle with to other people (like a VA, accountant, or proofreader). In my opinion, this is much smarter working, as it gives you the mental space to focus on the stuff you like, and are good at. Plus, you’ll build a lovely, supportive team around you – even as a freelancer.
Laura Barritt | Copywriter, consultant and trainer
Anything you can’t do, hand off to someone who can and do the same for them. It builds relationships, steadies your own ship and helps share the work around.
Emma Stokes | Creative Co-Working Studio Director | Brand & Graphic Designer
Top tips for… setting boundaries, saying no and protecting your wellbeing
Know your worth. We’re all wanting to be paid for what we do so we have more freedom to do what we want, but if we undercharge, join in with the race to the bottom or have no contracts, we won’t ever be smart.
Berenice Howard-Smith | Designer • Artist • Coach
You are the most important asset in your business. Don’t forget to take care of your own mental health for the sustainability of your business. Check in regularly to ask how you are doing, build good behaviours and boundaries to ensure wellbeing, and don’t do it alone – invest in connection and community to create your own support network.
Matthew Knight | Award-winning independent strategist
A different type of ‘productivity hack’ for you… prioritise your physical and mental wellbeing by incorporating micro wellness habits into your day. When you’re at your best, you’ll work faster, better and smarter.
Lucy Revett | Freelance Senior Copywriter & Editor
