When running your business, it can feel like you’re continually chasing your tail trying to get everything done.

However, there’s always a new task to get done.

At times, it feels like you’re the lead accountant, the chief marketer, copywriter, graphic designer, customer service agent and everything else in between.

This overwhelm is especially true as more and more businesses have a lean staff, some only having the owner as the sole employed staff member.

While it’s true, you can always hire more staff, that isn’t a realistic option for many.

A lot of your success will depend on the learning journey you and your staff take.

There are a few ways which you can fast-track your business education; in this article, we’ll go through a few favourites.

Streamline your reading

There are thousands of great business books out there. There’s almost a new one to add to the reading list every month.

Choosing the right book to read is almost a challenge in itself.

Then, after investing hours into reading a book, most of the time you only get a few takeaways anyway. Hell, sometimes, you take even less away.

All in all, while books can be a great way to get new ideas, they’re not exactly an efficient way to learn.

Websites like The Book Summary Club and Blinkist help condense those critical lessons from business books to an easy-to-read piece.

You can ultimately read a book a day in under ten minutes of your time.

By streamlining your reading, you spend more time taking action on the book’s lessons, and less time flicking between pages.

I have seen business owners share a book summary with staff before meetings and use it as a discussion prompt.

Just in time learning

It is honestly staggering how much information there is out there as a business owner.

Hell, I know I have gone down countless rabbit-holes into reading long-form blog posts and hours of listening to a newly-found podcast.

If you’re anything like me, we consume this content, but don’t do anything with it.

The truth is, you don’t need most of the information out there… Well, not yet anyway.

Most of what can really move the needle for you only come from a small part of this information and content.

The truth is that these content creators need to keep updating their work; They can’t just stop writing after covering the basics.

It is like a health blogger stopping after one post on eating less to lose weight. Sure, that article would give you enough to get results, but it would be a pretty empty website.

That is why these bloggers talk about the topics that’ll impact 1% of readers.

You don’t need to know all the information right now. We waste so much time on this information that we lose track of what we should be doing to move the needle.

Instead, look to focus on just-in-time learning; 57% of American employees expect their learning to be more “just in time,” than it was three years ago. (Based on CEB Research).

There are even courses you can take to implement just-in-time learning in your workplace, which, I know, is hugely meta.

Just get started

Honestly, the best way to hack into your education is to take action on what you’re learning.

Getting stuck in meetings and endless discussion doesn’t get you far. In fact, it just gets everyone exhausted before even starting.

Sure, not everything will work out straight away, but that’s life.

Success isn’t getting it right the first time, success is dedicating yourself to proceed to fail until you stop failing.

Final Thoughts

While there is a lot you can do as a business owner, doing what you should do will improve productivity for you and for any of your staff. Look to take on just-in-time learning to make sure you’re keeping on top of what’s important in your business.