Do It Now and Stop Procrastinating

How Procrastination Can Hurt Your Small Business

Running a small business is hard – there are a lot of different aspects of the business that need attention, and pushing off non-essential tasks is an easy way to clear some things off your plate. But procrastination is probably more dangerous to a small business’s success than many people may realize. Even the smallest tasks need attention and putting something off until tomorrow can lead to missing deadlines and possibly forgetting about the task all together.

How Procrastination Can Hurt Your Small Business

It is easy for small business owners to get overwhelmed with the number of tasks and responsibilities they have to complete or give attention to. Prioritizing these tasks by their importance is a great way to make sure that essential duties are being completed, but putting off non-essential tasks is a recipe for disaster. More often than not, procrastinating on certain tasks leads to missing important deadlines and worse yet, forgetting to do the task all together. Although this may seem like an exaggeration, any small business owner will tell you that procrastination can greatly hurt a business.

Consider this example – you receive a bill from the company that maintains your small business website. The payment is not due for a week, so the bill lands in the “to-do” pile. Two weeks later, a customer calls and states they cannot find the business’s website and are dissatisfied with not being able to order products online. You realize the payment was never made and the business’s site was shut down. Because you procrastinated paying the bill, customers are upset and many of them may not do business with you again. Waiting to pay a bill is a natural reaction for many people, but neglecting to make a payment such as this can greatly affect your business.

Battling Back Against Procrastination

Procrastination may seem inevitable in some areas of business, but there are ways to battle back against it and make sure that no task is neglected or forgotten about.  When prioritizing, make sure to evaluate the true important of certain tasks – making sure to think through the consequences of neglecting the task will help provide insight on what is truly important. Also, create a task timeline. This timeline, and sticking to it, will help to ensure that all important tasks and responsibilities are tended to and give the attention they need. Making the conscience effort to not procrastinate will help keep your small business on the road to success.

 Procrastination is a small vice that can lead to huge problem within a small business. Making sure to avoid procrastination by evaluating tasks properly and creating a timeline is a great way to keep a small business on track. When a small business owner is overwhelmed, it can be easy to put tasks off until the next day or the next week, but it is important to recognize the effect this can have on their success. Out mothers always told us, “why put off until tomorrow what you can do today?”

Are you ready to stop putting off tomorrow and act on your dreams of having your own small business? Stacy O'Quinn can help! Click here.

*Photo courtesy of draxil via Creative Commons License