Housekeeping tips for small businesses

The end of the year is a great time to do a bit of a small business housekeeping, have a digital tidy up and get your house in order. These housekeeping tasks shouldn’t take long but this is the perfect time to set systems into place and start habits that will make a big difference to your business over the coming year.

1. Clear your desktop of useless icons. Most of the icons on display serve no purpose and are automatically placed there whenever you install an upgrade. Get rid of everything you don’t need and make space to see the folders and apps you do use. Adobe and Skype are usually 2 of the biggest offenders.

2. Physically clean your computer. Your laptop or PC is probably filthy and would run better if you gave it a bit of a clean. If it’s also running quite slowly, In this article you will find a full run-down of how to make your computer run faster.

3. Change all your passwords.  Internet security is paramount, and most people still use the same password across all their sites. Getting hacked then robbed will take more time to sort out than putting time aside to prevent it happening in the first place. Read my article on how to choose memorable passwords and make sure you’re never caught out.

4. Slash and burn your newsletter list. You probably receive a multitude of newsletters each day whether you signed up for them or not. I advise setting up a separate email address just for newsletters will give your inbox some breathing space so you only receive emails relevant to your business.

5. Consolidate email accounts. Gmail has an option for you to import all your various accounts and can even make it look like you’re replying from your main business account rather than Gmail.  You just create an account, go to settings then import your accounts. It’s really easy and you can then manage all your addresses in one place.

6. Schedule stuff. It’s all fair and well having great intentions, but unless you actually get on and DO the task, it will never get done.  Use your calendar to schedule a weekly backup, a monthly disk clean-up, defrag and error check, plus a reminder to download your bank statements each month or to enter your expenses.  These things don’t sort themselves out and are a hassle when you have to do them in one go.

The same goes for learning new things. If you want to learn how Twitter works,  get more business from LinkedIn, do more networking, start a blog, look into Adwords, create a Facebook group or newsletter, or do regular marketing you’re going to have to schedule it into your week – otherwise it’ll never happen.

Putting a bit of time aside now to do some business housekeeping will get you in good habits for the rest of the year. They do take a small amount of time to set up or complete but once they’re done, everything will be just that little bit easier for you.

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