While it’s every business owner’s dream to have an abundance of free time just watching your business develop and bloom while you just sit around, it’s unfortunately just not realistic. Like all business owners, you’re probably almost always short on time and just frantically hurrying to finish tasks with the power of caffeine and four hours of sleep. Fret not, though, because there are ways to save time and get a little bit more out of your day. Here are five tips (as well as a bonus tip) to save hundreds of hours working on your business.
1. Ban Emails
Emails are great… until you have thousands upon thousands of them in your inbox. Obviously, it’s not very realistic to stop using emails outright, but you’ll find it surprising how fast communication is when you reduce your usage of email. But how do you do that?
For clients, email works best, but for your own team, you don’t really need to use email. Whether your team is in-office or remote, you can use Slack instead. Slack is much simpler and quicker than email since it’s basically like a massive group chat for your entire company. It doesn’t just end at Slack for your team members, though.
Your team does a ton of tasks that they don’t need to send through emails. For example, if a document needs approval, why not just link it to your project management system?
Speaking of project management systems, that’s another tool that can drastically decrease your dependence on emails. Something as simple as Trello, which is pretty much the Fisher Price of project management since it’s so simple, goes a long way. Notion is another great tool that we use here at Yeseo that makes things so much easier.
Most importantly, it’s not the tools themselves but the mindset. Where there’s a will there’s a way, and if your will is to end the mountain of work you have to sift through emails for, you can find a way. Even regular emails such as those from Search Console can be automated to go through as an RSS feed in Slack. Now, it might be easy to do this for your team, but what about your clients?
Pro Tip: Business communication is about less, not more
For some reason, the business community has put forth very extensive email rules, but maybe it’s time to break some rules. Look at the emails between you and your clients, do all of them really need a reply? Will the questions you’re asking need a tonne of back and forth?
It’s all about bringing conversations and email threads to a conclusion, but the real trick is doing it with love and care and showing your clients how much you appreciate their time and input. A great reference to doing that is Dale Carnegie’s ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’. It’s not just for making everyday communication easier, but it’s like a perfect manual for how to communicate thoroughly and applying it to your business life is quite easy.
2. Use Loom
Loom is such a simple tool that makes explaining complex matters so much easier. Basically, instead of writing out long emails or documents to explain something that you can express simply and clearly by talking, Loom allows you to quickly record a video to do just that. What’s even better is that you don’t need a fancy camera or equipment to record; you just pay a surprisingly small amount of money a year and anytime you want to record a video, you just press a shortcut on your keyboard, a pop up appears on screen, and you just start talking. You can even record your screen while you’re talking for bonus easy teaching points.
Loom is a godsend when it comes to communicating with your clients or team members, even if it’s just a 1-minute video, and because it’s so personal, it adds to the latest trend in business: hyper-personalisation. Not only does it reduce the ultra-professionalism of business, but it’s also technically very useful.
For example, as soon as you’re done with your Loom video, the video link will automatically be copied to your clipboard like a shortcut. It ends up saving so much time, and you can even use the AI version that has even more features like naming your videos for you.
3. Use AI for Mundane Tasks
We all have to get on the AI train as soon as possible, but the key is using good AI. While AI still isn’t at the point of doing all the work for you, you can still use it for mundane tasks that take up loads of time. For example, we get a lot of data, spreadsheets, and backlinks in the world of SEO that require a lot of opening, copying and pasting, but instead of just staring at them blankly for hours, a good prompt on ChatGPT goes through all the boring analysis and work in seconds.
A little warning: you can use AI for your boring tasks, but do NOT use it to write content. So, just grab a piece of paper (or use a notes app if you’re fancy like that) and every time a task comes up that makes you roll your eyes, add it to a list and see if AI can just do that for you. It’s also thankfully pretty cheap.
Another Pro Tip: Recognise BAD AI Output
To the untrained eye, a lot of AI output just looks perfect, but once you get into the details, you can find a lot of wrongs. You need to have enough knowledge of the outcome you’re expecting from any AI tool to know whether or not it’s giving you accurate results. If you know that 1+1=2 and an AI tool gives you 1+1=3, then you know it’s no good.
This is why the threat of AI replacing entire jobs isn’t the most accurate. Sure, it can do a lot of what real people can (though not as well in most cases), but it can actually help people who love their job get better at it by handling the not-so-fun elements and leaving all the work you actually enjoy doing to yourself.
4. Use a Scheduler
It’s a no-brainer to use a scheduler if you’re struggling with time management, but finding a good scheduler is really what makes a difference. Here at Yeseo, we primarily use Motion because it does so much more than just scheduling. But first, why use a scheduler?
Let’s set this scene: you’re on a call with a client or in a meeting and something pops up in your head that you need to do. All of a sudden, you need to input this task on Notion or Asana or Trello or any project management tool, but by the time you actually get to that stage, you may get confused about what task needs to be done at what time.
This is where Motion comes in. Instead of constantly going back and forth between tasks or even blocking tasks entirely, Motion can take your task from the project management tool, decide when you’re going to do the task according to length or importance using AI, and it can even reschedule your task if you don’t mark it complete on time. This doesn’t just save time but saves you a lot of stress.
5. Use AI Notetakers
Notetaking is perhaps one of the best usages of AI for those mundane tasks we mentioned. Notetakers like Fireflies are that mysterious extra participant in your Zoom or Teams calls who never talks, but they do a whole lot more.
Let’s set another scene: you’re in a call or meeting and you need to write important notes in your notes app or even on paper. The speed required to take down every important aspect of the meeting or call while paying attention to what’s being said can be inhuman, so why not let an inhuman do it? It’s even worse if you plan on writing the notes after your meeting or call because let’s face it, a good chunk of that information will be long gone.
AI notetakers like Fireflies won’t just transcribe your meeting, but it will also take action points out and remind you of what’s important. Fireflies, which is what we use, enters your meeting, does its thing, and at the end automatically puts a summary of the meeting and a link to the full notes in any project management system; it can even assign notes to specific people in your system.
Fireflies may not be the cheapest option out there, but it’s unbelievably accurate and for tens of pounds, you can save hours of effort, so why not? Any tool that will translate to less effort or more time is always a good investment.
BONUS TIP: Get an Assistant
Now, our bonus tip is something people have been doing for hundreds of years, but it’s still not talked about enough: get a real, human assistant. Tools and AI can go a long way, but nothing can replicate the value of a good human assistant, whether virtual or in-office. Nowadays, a virtual assistant can be more convenient and it’s easier than ever to find one. You can put a hiring post on a million websites, or even social media sites like Twitter (or X, whatever) or Reddit.
Now, if you’re paying attention, what’s a major task your assistant can take off your hands? Doing your emails! Remember the emails that you still have to do? Well, your assistant can just do them for you. With a bit of instruction, you can clear your inbox in minutes. Virtual assistants are also quite affordable, so you don’t have to break the bank.
Summary
In short, the best way to save a lot of time as a business owner is to save little bits here and there that accumulate to hours by the end. Again, tools, tools, tools! Notetakers, project management systems, AI, and schedulers do wonders for your work hours.
If something is taking up too much time (like emails), it’s always a plus to get help from an assistant. Do you need to do all of these at once? Not at all, but a little bit here and a little bit there and you’re on your way to having more free time to enjoy your non-business world.
USEFUL LINKS
We may earn a small commission if you buy something after clicking these links, but that isn’t why we recommend these products and services!
Motion – we LOVE Motion for productivity scheduling.
Notion – the best project management and organisational tool we’ve ever seen.
BONUS TIP – Combine Notion and Motion using Zapier to revolutionise your life!
Trello – the easiest way to fix your project management.
Fireflies AI – our go-to AI notetaker for online meetings.
Last Updated on May 27, 2025
