In a traditional job setting, the difference between work and home is fairly clear and easy to see – until you start bringing work home anyway! But when you run a business or have a remote job, it can be harder to spot the difference – and harder to manage things.
Of course, the big question is HOW to manage time! I think the simplistic answer is to set boundaries to maintain control.
From talking to various people, I see two main groups of at home workers – those who get distracted from work by the need to tidy the kitchen, hang out the washing, vacuum the floors and so on, and those who work a lot and find it hard to manage much of the house stuff at all. Which group do you fit into? I have no trouble (well, generally speaking!) getting on with work but end up working too hard and letting the housework slide…
Here are some of my ideas on creating boundaries between business and home, but I’d love to hear your suggestions, too…
Sometimes it seems impossible to make those boundaries, but the reduced stress and lost time is well worth the effort. Good luck with it!
Use your words and time wisely!
I have received emails/letters that include “thanks for your patients” where I’m sure the writer didn’t have the slightest idea that they really meant “thanks for your patience”. Do you know the difference?
patience: bearing or enduring difficult or trying circumstances, usually in a calm and accepting manner
The audience’s patience was rewarded with a wonderful concert.
patients: people receiving the services of medical practitioners – often ill or injured people but not always
The doctor had a queue of patients waiting to see her during the epidemic.
Given that patients refers to a group of people, it is no surprise that the word ends in s, the common plural ending.
Contingency planning and being prepared are important steps for a business owner – but steps that are not urgent so can easily be left behind in the day to day busyness of business and making a profit.
I was reminded of this topic today when I read an article called ‘When bad stuff happens’ – being about small business owners needing to think ahead to potential problems. And having procedures in place to cope when problems do arise.
Back in 1999, I had a contract to prepare some contingency plans for a major Australian company. We did various things, but one key task was preparing a checklist and contingency plan for the morning of 1 January 2000 – the day computers were going to fail and planes fall from the sky! The checklist included things such as ‘turn on a light switch. If it doesn’t work, try a second switch. If it still doesn’t work, look at neighbouring buildings and street lights – do they have power?’ We thought ahead and gave staff options to get all the information before emergency procedures were put into place.
So what sort of things do you need procedures for in your business? Obviously, that depends on your business, but some simple procedures you could start with are:
If you start implementing some of these plans into your business, I’d love to hear about it – although I hope it never becomes necessary to use the procedures for a negative problem (using them because you win a trip around the world is a different story!)
Use your words and time wisely!
Altogether: completely or totally. Overall.
He was altogether mad!
All together: the entire group at the same time or place.
We were all together when we got the news.
Think of altogether being one word and meaning complete compared to all members of a group being separate even when together.
Think about why you use the internet for business. Sure you look at the graphics and pictures, but the main activity is collecting information, right?
So, does it make sense that one of the best ways to pull people into your site is to give them information? Selling your product or service is your main business aim, of course, but if you give people information they will trust you – and they’ll stay on your site long enough to learn your name.
How can you use information to get people to visit your website?
By far the easiest way is to submit informative articles to various web sites and ezines. That doesn’t mean you submit an article about you or your business as that will bore and annoy your readers. What you have to give them is good information about something relevant to your business, something they can use and appreciate you for.
If you are a mechanic, you could submit articles explaining what fuel injected means or how to jump start an engine; a wedding planner can write about how to decide on a guest list; an accountant can explain negative gearing or claiming GST inputs; and a butcher could write about the different cuts of meat.
You also need to make sure the article is interesting and basic enough for your potential clients to understand and finish. It must be accurate and presented professionally as well, if it is to promote your business positively.
At the end of the article, you include a short bio about yourself and your business. You can see the bios I use at the end of business and health articles.
If you have a web site or email address, make sure the bio includes this information so it can be hyperlinked back to you. Thus anyone reading your article and wanting to know more or use your service can contact you instantly.
I mentioned the value of promotional articles a few weeks ago, and I will cover ways to make use of them in coming posts.
Surfing some of my favourite blogs today, I came across a post by Donna-Marie about choosing suitable fonts. As well as being a good summary of which fonts work well in different media, it reminded me of someone recently asking about using different sized fonts – and recent experiences of unsuitable font choices.
I remember doing school assignments where I’d use different fancy fonts for each heading and changed the text to suit the amount of information in each section, and so on – and I was proud of being so versatile! But looking back (or at children’s work now) I can see that it looks childish and puts the focus on the fonts rather than the content. It isn’t very professional to give the impression you are trying to minimise the content!
As a general rule, it is better to stick to one font style and size in a single document. It is consistent which makes it easier to read (the eye doesn’t have to keep adjusting to different fonts) and it also looks clean and professional. And to be honest, it is also easier to prepare than swapping fonts all the time!
The common exceptions in font sizes would be:
If you are tempted to change font sizes to break up a chunk of text, consider bullet points, italics, bold, more paragraph breaks and page layout as alternatives.
Assistants: two or more people who are helping
His assistants were busy preparing the report.
Assistance: the help being provided
I really appreciated your assistance yesterday.
The use of -ants and -ance is often confused because they sound exactly the same despite the very different spelling. The easiest way to remember which is which is to think of ants (yes, the insects!) as doers and use that ending when you are writing about people doing something.
Everyone I have spoken to enjoyed the conference I attended in July and that got me wondering why – and thinking about other conferences I’ve been to and heard of. So I want to know what makes a good conference?
Knowing what makes a good conference is very useful if you ever have to plan one, but it can also be useful in deciding whether or not to invest your time and money into a particular conference. Business events can be a great resource – but they can also be a waste of time and money if you don’t choose carefully.
Some of the features that I think helped make this particular conference good are:
What features have you particularly appreciated about a conference or business event? Do you agree with the features I listed as being valuable (especially if you were at this conference!)?
One pair of misused words that I find really annoying is your/you’re. It isn’t hard to learn one is possessive and one is an abbreviation (for you are), but so many people use the incorrect word which shows a lack of knowledge and attention to detail that does not represent them , their content or their business well.
Your: refers to something you own
Is that your bike?
You’re: an abbreviation of ‘you are’.
You’re going to work tomorrow.
Yore: referring to the past, although it isn’t often used now
In days of yore, a Lady’s ankle was never seen.
Although these three words sound exactly the same, they obviously can’t be used as substitutes for each other. No catchy memory tricks for this one – you simply need to remember that the apostrophe replaces the a in you are to create you’re.
One of the conference workshops I attended last week was called “Working in a clutter-free, productive place”, run by Natasha Crestani of Inspired Honey. It was fantastic!
I must say I agree with the premise that less clutter makes it easier to concentrate and to find things, both of which make you more productive when you try to work and function. But when you get busy, it can be hard to manage the clutter.
If you tend to hoard things and surround yourself with clutter, I believe you have to be ready to let go of things or it won’t happen. But even organising your clutter will make a difference if you can’t actually lose much of it yet.
Some tips I got from Natasha – either directly or by thinking about what she said – are listed below and hopefully one or two will help you be more productive in your business/office!
What systems will work in your oficce and situation depends on you, your business and what resources you have so the bad news is that there is no magic bullet to fix clutter and disorganisation. The good news is that you can change things and become more productive 🙂
As a busy writer, I admit that sometimes my desk and office got out of control and were hidden under piles of paper. Since Natasha’s workshop, I have reduced clutter and it feels great! I am implementing new systems, too, so I will never lose my desk again!
Still, I would love to hear your business/office organisation tips so please add them as comments…
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