Managing Time & Resources: How Startups Deal with Productivity
Startups usually have very limited resources — time is scarce, there aren’t enough people, and there’s never enough money. But they still need to beat their well-funded competitors in the race for market share.
When your competitors outfund you, the only way to beat them is by being world-class executors. This means that productivity and efficiency are two extremely important qualities founders have to have if they want to perform on a high level.
At Piktochart, we believe in working smart and managing time and resources carefully in order to execute at our best, foster creativity, and use time effectively. Here’s how we do it:
We Went Semi-Remote
We believe that every startup should consider, at least at some point, a remote team. By having a team that’s spread around the world, everyone has the opportunity to work from the place that makes them the happiest and most productive.
A 2014 study from Warwick University in the UK shows there is a strong causal correlation between between human well-being (or happiness) and human performance. In other words, there is no better productivity hack than actually being happy about what we do.
If we also throw in the fact that the average American spends 50.8 minutes commuting per day, then remote teams are a no-brainer.
We cut down on meetings
Rumor has it that 95% of meetings are uncalled for and can be solved with a quick email.
An essay by Paul Graham called Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule explains why programmers (or makers) dislike meetings so much:
“They’re on a different type of schedule from other people. Meetings cost them more… A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon, by breaking it into two pieces each too small to do anything hard in.”
At startups, the product gets made by the makers, so if disrupt the day with an hour-long meeting, you might be killing a half-day’s productivity. At Piktochart, we’ve implemented “No Meeting Tuesdays” in an effort to get “wired” and dedicate fully to our own separate tasks.
We’re killing email
A study commissioned by Hewlett Packard in 2005 states that email hurts IQ more than pot. It’s also the primary method of external interruption. What seems like a harmless email often has a high cost for your productivity. It takes, on average, 23 minutes and 51 seconds to get back to full flow after being interrupted.
The easiest way to cut down on email, in our opinion, is by using a tool like Hipchat or Slack. These tools allow teams to communicate seamlessly, share files and more. By using Slack, your email load will decrease considerably, and your workflow will certainly improve.
We (try to) keep a healthy work-life balance
Common logic and basic economic theory says that as working hours increase, output increases as well: if you produce 10 of y in 1 hour, then if you work 10 hours, you must product 100 y.
Contrary to basic math, research has shown that reducing working hours and actually having a life outside your startup considerably improves team productivity.
A design studio in the Netherlands called Heldergroen has found a ridiculously creative way to encourage its employees to maintain a healthy work-life balance — at 6 PM, their desks simply disappear. In the evenings and on weekends, everyone’s desks are lifted up into the ceiling on steel cables.
We’re getting started earlier
Starting your day earlier than usual makes a huge difference.
“After spending time in Sydney, Australia, I was amazed how everyone I’ve met gets out of bed as early as 5:30–6AM. People go jogging at the beach or catch an early swim and they are at their desks by 8AM. This really motivated me to do the same and it is truly refreshing for both body and mind.” says Marta, our head of marketing.
By the time you reach your working space, you feel energized and ready to start your day. “I always try to get an early start and clear some things out of the way before I reach the office” she adds.
We’re staying focused on the single task at hand
We’ve already talked about the cost of task switching. We should strive to do tasks in series, not parallel.
Auren Hoffman, the CEO of LiveRamp, who started and sold 5 different companies, advises against multitasking:
“Be totally focused on the thing you are doing while you are doing it. Do not multitask. If you find yourself reading emails in a meeting (or reading Quora), then you probably should not be in the meeting (or the meeting needs to be run better).”
If you are working on a task, mentally allocate time to devote solely to that task. During that block, don’t do anything else. If you finish early, you can reward yourself with doing something else, but only if you finish early.
Many of us at Piktochart use the Pomodoro technique to keep our focus. We set the timer on 15–20 minutes, focus on finishing the task in front of us, and then take a 5-minute break. It really works!
We’re doing fewer things and saying “no” more often
As humans, we often fall into the trap of saying “yes” to most things. That’s a huge threat to our productivity. Instead, you should be ruthlessly critical about accepting the responsibility for that task, reading that proposal, or attending that meeting you were invited to.
Ashli Norton is part of the Autosend team, and she advises against saying yes to everything:
“I can spend my time on EVERYTHING, or I can sort my list by most high-value things to do and do those things only.” By saying ‘no’, you’ll be able to focus on the important tasks: “When I do that — I’m more effective. It also helps me identify what to outsource and what to do myself.”
SafeGraph CEO Auren Hoffman agrees:
“The biggest mistake most CEOs make is that they try to do too much. The real winners are the ones that do fewer things … but do them great. Of course, this is not just true for CEOs — it is true for everyone.”
We’re using the right software for the task
As Marc Andreessen says, software is eating the world. People build software to automate tasks, improve workflows, and increase output with limited resources. As a tech startup, you have to take advantage of this wealth of resources.
- We use Slack to communicate and Basecamp or Asana to manage our projects.
- We useGoogle Drive to share documents and photos. Dropbox is another great option.
- We use the Kanban tool Trello to keep lists and workflows in one place.
Try to leverage as many external resources as possible to maximize your team’s efficiency.
Do you have any productivity hacks you find amazingly useful? Please, feel free to share it in the responses. We’d love to hear about it!
If you’re looking for more tips on design, marketing, and startup life, check out our blog at http://piktochart.com/blog.
Originally published at piktochart.com on May 25, 2015.
