How to Stay Productive with a Clinical Research Consulting Business

When you run a clinical research consulting business, there is no boss to motivate you or keep you on track.

You only have yourself to rely on.

This can be really hard, especially if you also work on your business from a home office.

This article will review key ideas and advice for staying on track and accelerating your business.

Wasted Time ⌚ = Wasted Money 💰

When running a clinical research consulting business, you only get paid for solving client's problems.

Time spent scrolling social media or reading the news is not solving anyone's problems.

There are only so many hours in a day. To grow your business, you can't add more hours in a day, but you can add more productive hours in a day.

If you want your business to succeed, you need to make sure the hours you dedicate to work are productive.

Eat that Frog 🐸

Part of being productive is doing important work before all other work.

Brian Tracy wrote a great book about this, Eat that Frog.

The basic idea is that there is never going to be enough time to get everything done that needs doing. Therefore, you should always do the most important work first, before anything else.

For a clinical research consulting business, the two most important tasks are solving problems for clients and making sales.

If you can prioritize those two tasks before all others, then your productivity will increase immensely.

Stay Organized 🗄️

How can you prioritize tasks if you have no idea what needs to get done on any given day?

The key is to stay organized.

A simple way to do this are lists. You don't need fancy project management software and Kanban boards. You can get started with 3 simple lists, generated on paper or digitally.

1. A list of potential clients and where in the sales pipeline they are.
2. A list of projects.
3. A list of tasks to complete within each project.

For time sensitive tasks, it can also be helpful to put deadline reminders in a physical or digital calendar so they deadlines don't pass you buy!

Virtual Desktops 🖥️

If you are using a personal computer in your clinical research consulting business, a great tool to stay organized is virtual desktops.

You can create multiple virtual desktops on your computer. Think of it like having multiple virtual computer monitors that you can switch back and forth from easily. This is crucial for separating projects and tasks.

For example, you can have your email on 1 virtual desktop, all files for task A for your client on another, and finally a proposal for a potential client on a 3rd.

Switching between the virtual desktops is as easy as pressing a few keys on the keyboard, depending on your operating system.

This small addition can be a huge game changer for your productivity.

Procrastination 🚫

It is easier to work on simple, unimportant tasks rather than the most important tasks of the day.

But this is not a productive use of time.

If you want to grow your clinical research consulting business, you need to avoid procrastination.

One trick is to work on the task you are putting off for 10 minutes. Just tell yourself that after 10 minutes you can move on and work on something else.

What usually happens is that after you have been working on a task for 10 minutes, the will to procrastinate is gone and you can get going with finishing what needs to be done.

Work Life Separation ⚖️

You have likely heard the expression work-life balance.

What you want to achieve with your clinical research consulting business.

What this means is that when you have time set aside to work, you work. When you have time set aside for leisure, relax.

Don't sit at your work desk at the start of your workday and browse the internet or play video games for 2 hours. If you decide to have leisure time, then don't start the workday.

Keep work and leisure separate in your mind.

You can also help make this separation clearer by having dedicated spaces for work and leisure. If you have a home office, only work in the home office. Don't relax there, spend your leisure time in another room in the house. CGP Grey makes a great video about this, Spaceship You.

Minimize Distractions 📲

It has been said that every time you are working on something, then get distracted, it takes 10 minutes to refocus on what you were originally doing.

This means that if you want to be productive, you need to minimize interruptions. In the digital age, these are going to primarily come from a personal computer, tablet, or a smartphone.

Let's review few insidious interrupters.

Email ✉️

This is probably the biggest distraction for a clinical research consulting business.

Of course, you have to answer client messages, but if you are constantly interrupted by email then you will get nothing done.

Part of what makes email so distracting is that even when you glance at your inbox, your brain is already churning about what each message could contain or what your response might be. Now you've lost all focus on your important tasks for the day.

Here are a few strategies.

1. Turn off all email notifications - This includes sounds, vibrations, and the coloured dots over the email icon. On all devices.
2. Only check email at set times - Pick 2 or 3 times a day to check your inbox and respond to email. Don't look at your inbox more than that.
3. Use email filters - Even if you are only checking email a few times per day, your inbox can fill up with a lot of junk. Try to use email filters to keep high priority messages in your inbox, but low priority messages filtered into folders—or better yet the trash!
4. Hide your inbox on a separate desktop - when working on a personal computer, desktops are a great way to separate out different tasks. It can also be helpful to have your inbox hidden on a separate tab so you are not constantly distracted by messages piling up.

Smart Devices 📱

Another huge distraction can be smart devices chiming and buzzing.

Silence those phones and watches!

A buzzing wrist is very distracting when you are in the middle of an important task.

If you need to be reachable by SMS and phone to clients while working, you can disable notifications from all apps except the ones you need to immediately communicate with clients.

Time Tracking ⏱️

Keep track of how much of your working day is spent doing useful work can be really useful-and eye opening!

Time tracking doesn't have to be complicated. At the very simplest, you could track 3 things:

1. Billable hours - time spent solving client problems.
2. Business development - your sales process for potential clients.
3. Everything else - less important work, such as bookkeeping.

Summary

This article has summarized key ideas and advice for staying productive while clinical research consulting. Now get out there and crush it!

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