MAKO Design’s Top Tips for Small Businesses to Stay Organized

Starting a small business is never an easy feat, and a lot of small business owners agree that it takes a lot of resilience to survive in competitive, ever-changing markets. At MAKO Design, we work with some of the most innovative and determined inventors who are looking to start excelling with their small businesses. We’ve learned a lot from our experiences with those in small business roles.

One of the biggest lessons and skills to master that any small business owner should know is how to stay organized. No matter the situation, an organization is what will keep your business running smoothly, help you accomplish your goals and survive any small business crisis that could occur.

With so many different aspects to handle within a small business, it can be hard to stay organized. As such, here are MAKO Design’s top tips to help your small business stay organized in order to make inventions.

Keep multiple lists or Have an Agenda

As stated before, MAKO knows how hard it is to make an invention while keeping on top of things, especially with so much going on in the economy, product design realm, and business world. Therefore, it’s important to have a good grasp of what is most important to you and your business.

A good way to exercise this practice is to have master lists of different topics, resources, contacts, and documents that are important and pertain to your small business. Keeping an agenda is also a great way to outline your daily tasks, make goals for the week, month, and year and prioritize what is most needed for your small business during certain time frames.

Not only do lists help you organize all your business goals, tasks, and assets, but they will remind you of the pathway you are on to reach your ultimate and long-term business goals.

Keep a Clear and Clean Workspace

Whether you work at home or an office, it’s important to have a clear, designated area where you can sit down, focus, and get your work done to make inventions. With how fast things move and with so much to do in one day, it’s common that most workplaces, especially desk areas, can get filled up or cluttered with papers and other important pieces of work.

The problem with having a messy or cluttered work area or desk is that it can deter and easily distract you from your work. It ultimately creates a more stressful work environment for yourself and your colleagues. Keeping a clean and tidy workspace not only helps you stay less stressed but also increases productivity, and helps you focus on the task at hand.

Additionally, having all your important documents and papers in a neat place that you can reach out to and refer to at any moment is more helpful than having to look through piles of different items, which ultimately wastes time.

Practice Time Management to Help Focus

When faced with so much to do in one day, it can be hard to prioritize what needs to be done to make inventions at certain times in the world. More time-sensitive projects should always be at the forefront of what you need to do for the day; however, understanding what is more time-sensitive is a skill on its own.

Start by categorizing your projects and tasks by their size and when you would like them to be done in order to help accomplish your goals. Once you’ve created a schedule or calendar to work by and understand when certain items need to be done or worked on to be achieved, you can dedicate a certain time of the day or week to properly focus on the task at hand.

Prioritizing and scheduling your time in such matters helps you ultimately get certain things done as they should without falling into procrastination or trying to multi-task (which is proven to result in low-quality work or prone to mistakes being made).

Communication is Key

Finally, across teams, business owners, partners, clients, and most importantly, your audience, the best way to stay organized with your small business in order to stay on track to make inventions is to keep an open line of communication.

It is vital for your small business’s success to always make an effort to communicate your situation, your progress, your goals, and where you stand as a business. Not only will this help speed up the process when dealing with partners, teamwork or other business owners, but it will also help you understand the estimated times needed to help achieve your goals and get things done.

Having a clear form of communication with your audiences also helps inform them of how your business is doing, any new accomplishments or company news, and overall helps your business grow as a brand. One of the best ways to keep a clear line of communication between your audiences and clients is to utilize social media and keep in constant contact through different forms of stimulating content.

Want to learn more about MAKO Design’s top tips for small businesses? Check out what our CEO, Kevin Mako, recommends here!

If you have a great new invention and you’d like to learn more about this process, get in touch with MAKO today and visit our website to find out more. Or feel free to give us a call at 1-888-806-MAKO, and we can set you up on a call with our product strategist!

About: MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop-shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves, all in a high-quality, cost-effective, and timely manner. We operate as one powerhouse 30-person product design team spread across 4 offices to serve you (Austin, Miami, San Francisco, & Toronto). We have full-stack in-house industrial design, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, patent referral, prototyping, and manufacturing services. To assist our startup and inventor clients, in addition to above, we help with business strategy, product strategy, marketing, and sales/distribution for all consumer product categories. Also, our founder Kevin Mako hosts The Product Startup Podcast, the industry's leading hardware podcast. Check it out for tips, interviews, and best practices for hardware startups, inventors, and product developers. Click HERE to learn more about MAKO Design + Invent!