Bibbip. 4am. Bloody email on the bloody smart phone. Twelve years and still Hewhoshallnotbewrittenabout is seemingly unable to find the silent switch before bedtime.  Grrrrrrrr. But such is the love hate relationship we have with our devices.

Truth is I love my devices. My son loves his  my devices. Hewhoshallnotbewrittenabout loves his devices. They entertain us. They inform us. They feed us and clothe us and help us find the right train or bus or ferry, with just a little operator assistance.  They tell me where I need to be and when. They keep me connected to family and colleagues on Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter and Instagram. And send us emails, any time of the day or night. Which somehow we are expected to respond to while we’re sleeping.  And that doubles as the hate bit.

Even so, I’m yet to meet anyone who truly prefers the good old days before mobility. Because we all place so much value on being connected these days.

But apart from the emails, and maybe the calendar,
how much of your business activity is actually mobile ready?

Is your invoicing mobile? Your payment receipts mobile? Your scheduling and ordering and customer database mobile? Maybe your a truly mobile blogger?  Well, I’m not.

I’ve been reflecting on this as I’ve been spring cleaning my life and reshaping my career over the past couple of months, and it’s particularly frustrating to me that for someone completely mobile-willing-ready-and-able, surprisingly little of my work is done completely on the go.

Which means every week I still need to find a chunk of hours to be at my desk (or at least on a desktop) to get to the regular business housekeeping.

Like most situations, necessity is the mother of all invention though, and I have a real burning platform now to find some serious efficiencies in my work.

When the school year finally began for me, just last week, I lost four hours out of every week day.  Just like that. Turns out there’s a big difference between long daycare hours and school hours.  Who knew?

And so I’ve just found myself 20 hours a week short changed.  Add in the 12 weeks of school holidays and bingo! I’ve just lost the equivalent of 32 workweeks out of my year.  That leaves me with the equivalent of just 20 weeks to get to all those things on my vision board for 2014.  Yikes!

Actually, I’m lying.  I haven’t got to the vision board at all, that’s still on my Priority To-Do List that I’ll get to now that we’re finally settled into the second week of school and I’ve at least got those 6 hours a day to play with! But you get the picture.

So maybe we’re not all parents of school age kids, but the truth is we’re all dealing with our own time demands and the need to get more done in fewer hours.  And something’s gotta give. 

Turns out that mobile business could be the answer. At least if you’re a small business.

Small businesses are generating as much as nine weeks a year in time savings and an average eight per cent increase in revenue from mobile devices,  a new report into the mobile habits of Australian small businesses has found.

The new Intuit Australian Small Business Mobile Study released today (and thank you to Intuit for the invitation to come along) examined the mobile habits of 501 Australian small businesses and found that overall, among the small businesses using mobile devices:

• 70 per cent improved productivity.
• 52 per cent responded faster to customers.
• 47 per cent increased efficiency.
• 41 per cent improved customer service.
• 42 per cent improved flexibility in when and where work gets done.
• 18 per cent saved money.

The younger the user, the greater the potential benefit according to the survey results.  And this infographic provides a snapshot of where the gains can be found:

All this has got me wondering how I could bank some of these time savings this year, and just how much of my business could I really do on the go.

I’m still mulling over that and don’t have all the answers yet.  But it’s definitely food for thought. And definitely a goal worthy for the vision board.  Once I find the time in my schedule to create it, of course.

So… is your business mobile? Have you mastered the art of the paperless office?? And what activities have you found adapt best to being on the go? Or have you maybe struggled with the notion of going mobile?

Would love to hear your thoughts and tips on this, for as much as it seems like a great idea in theory I’m really not sure how much it is practically possible.