If only the day offered more time, eh?
As a restauranteur, this thought will doubtless cross your mind regularly. There’s simply never enough hours in the day to get everything done!
Unfortunately, time is completely out of your control. All you can do is harness it and use every minute to your advantage.
With that in mind, we thought we’d put together some tips on managing your time more effectively as a restauranteur.
Prepare to retrieve those hours!
Schedule ‘you’ time
You’ll obviously refer to this as ‘me’ time, but… well, you get the idea.
Restaurants live and die by schedules, but one of the most important schedules restauranteurs tend to neglect is their own.
How often do you set time aside to do the things you’ve promised yourself you’d complete for months? ‘Me’ time will enable you to crack those tasks, but also take a well-deserved break from managing both the staff and the restaurant itself.
As daft as it might sound, make sure you book time in your diary where you’ll be alone. If possible, pick a time when you’ll be completely alone in the restaurant – it’ll enable you to collect your thoughts and address those outstanding tasks without distraction.
Consider using productivity apps
Thanks to the way smartphones have so quickly developed into powerful pocket computers, they now offer a wealth of tools that can help with time management.
One look on your smartphone’s app store will confirm how many productivity-related tools are available to you, and there might be one or two that will help see you through the day.
From scheduling apps to those that help you track your time and identify where you’re being wasteful, there’s a lot of technology out there that might help you claw back the hours.
Delegate!
You don’t have to do all of this stuff by yourself, and, as hard as it might be to hand over the reigns for certain tasks, you’ll end up going stir crazy if you don’t delegate.
Spend some of the ‘me’ time you scheduled thinking about what you do each day. There will be one or two tasks you undertake which you know, hand on heart, could be performed by someone else.
Let go of the stuff that’s clogging up your day; others are more than capable of doing it for you.
Invest regularly in staff training
How much time do you spend continually showing staff how to operate the EPOS system or on demonstrating the intricacies of table management?
You shouldn’t have to keep doing this, but if you are, it’s probably because those staff members haven’t been trained to a high enough standard.
Invest in regular training for your team. It might seem like an expense you could do without, but the more they’re shown how to do stuff, the more they’ll retain and build on those skills – and the more time you’ll get back for yourself!
Wrapping up
Try our tips above, and you should find that your days begin to free up a little; you’ll start to find hours where you can invest your time more wisely and really make a difference to the business.
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