Staying Sane On Social Media This Summer

admin Guest Blog, School Holidays, Social media July 5, 2018Business Owner, Social Media Management 0 Comment

As a self-employed business owner, taking time off can be daunting at the best of times. You may worry that your business will grind to a halt without you at the helm, that you’ll lose the momentum you have worked so hard to build, that disaster will strike and you won’t be there to put the fire out and, on top of all that, you feel guilty for enjoying time off when you “should” be working.

I’ve had all of these worries and more and it’s taken me a good few years to truly appreciate that time off – and I mean real time away from your business with the opportunity to unplug entirely – is absolutely essential to both our wellbeing and our success in business.

So I hope that, with summer approaching, you have a well-deserved break or two scheduled into your diary by now.

Keeping a lid on social media

Whether you’re planning to jet off or you’re going to enjoy a few days off at home if you’re not careful social media can have a sneaky habit of hijacking your holidays.

A quick check on your personal social media, or a glance at your business accounts to make sure everything is OK, can soon turn into falling down the rabbit hole and before you know it, social media is consuming your time off.

It’s super important to set yourself some social media boundaries before you have time away from your business.

It’s absolutely fine if you want to check in whilst you’re off work, whether that be for personal reasons, work or both, but be firm with yourself. Decide when you will check in, how long for and what you’ll do in that time. Set a timer if you have to, and log off when the time is up.

And, above all, avoid the mindless flick through the feed! Instead, make sure you’re logging on with a purpose in mind.

Schedule your posts in advance

As your holiday approaches, set some time aside to create social media posts that can be scheduled to go out whilst you’re away. That way, your crowd won’t be left high and dry and you’ll maintain the momentum you’ve been building with your social media marketing.

Don’t leave it until the last minute to start creating and scheduling in your social media posts. Inevitably, other things will crop up on your last couple of days at work and social media is likely to be the first thing that gets pushed to one side if, for example, a client asks you to do something at the last minute.

It’s also a good idea to give yourself a little breathing space on the other side of your holiday. Allow a day or two when you will still have posts scheduled in so that you can ease yourself back into work and get your head in the game again before creating more content.

You don’t have to go it alone

If you’re struggling to find the time to get enough content in the bag to see you through your holiday, or you’re worried about leaving your accounts unattended whilst you are away, then enlist some help.

A good Virtual Assistant (VA) will be able to keep an eye on your accounts, respond to comments and messages and even help you schedule your content. Just be sure to leave them with a clear brief so they know exactly what you’re expecting them to do in your absence.

These three simple steps are going to help you stay sane, enjoy some well-deserved rest this summer and return to your business rested and raring to go again!

About Beckie Coupe

Beckie is the founder of Infinity and author of The Social Media Handbook for Soulful Entrepreneurs.

She works with soulful entrepreneurs to give them the confidence to use social media and truly make it their own. To show up, stand out and shine online. To shout their message from the rooftops, attract their dream clients and create a business and a lifestyle that they adore!

Order your copy of The Social Media Handbook for Soulful Entrepreneurs >> http://amzn.eu/40XKAnm

Join the Infinity Facebook community >> https://www.facebook.com/InfinitywithBeckieCoupe

Learn more over on the Infinity website >> http://infinity-digital.co.uk

Monkey Around with Memes

admin Productivity, Social media, Virtual help October 20, 2017October 19, 2017Outsourcing, Productivity, Small Business, Virtual Assistant 0 Comment

So memes! Most people love a good meme, and frankly, anything visual on the social networks works wonders for your reach. But surprisingly it’s a task that can suck up so much vital time in your working day, you start with all good intentions but before you know it 2 hrs later and you are still no further forward! Yet I was able to create these easily for clients, yet my own was like pulling teeth.

I found that when I started doing these, I felt like I was bobbing up and down in a sea of quotes and images, I would spend a few hours on this task, and by the time my eyes were watering and frankly bored to death of them, I hadn’t really made a dent. It became frustrating and an annoyance, which then made the task a less important one, and one that I did as and when a meme was required.

So, what changed? I re-visited my process (which was non-existent) and pinpointed my stumbling blocks, and believe it or not there were a few. So I went through what frustrates me, what was the need for them, why it wasn’t working and so on.

And now I have a whole new process that seems to be working, remember like with any process, it’s a work in progress, if you need to tweak then do so, don’t wait for it to stop working again, if you find one thing isn’t working then change that one thing, instead of letting it manifest into a bigger problem.

So what did I change?

Themes

I found giving myself themes for each day of the week has given me some clarity, I use these themes to create memes and posts with ease, some days I will use them for motivation other days maybe things that can make your business work better for you.

If you want to work with themes write down the days of the week, and pick a subject that you want to talk about for each day, so for example only, you could say Motivation Monday, Top tips Tuesday and so on, a fantastic way to find ideas is via Twitter, you will find under trending theme days.

Imagery

Ok, so this one is quite possibly my biggest time sucker, I am slightly partial to a good business image, now for me I work alongside my branding, I had my branding done this year by the ever so talented Vicki Nicholson of Branding Therapy, once she completed it all she gave me my guidelines, which consists of my brand colours, fonts etc, I also know that my business, in general, is designed to support mums in business, so that helps me narrow my images, so based on branding, colour and ideal customer it makes that a little quicker, my problem is there are so many lovely images, and at the moment I am still only on the free stock option!

My tips for imagery sourcing

Colours, go with your branding colours, if you have not had your brand done, then go with logo colours, and what you feel makes your business stand out
Go for images that reflect your ideal customer
You don’t have to go with people in images all the time, backdrops, scenery are also very good, and could work better if you chose certain themes
Choose 5-10 at any one time, more than that and you are not really picking because you like them, it’s because you have gone into click overdrive!

Block time

Set yourself 30 minutes a week, I know that doesn’t sound much but It’s enough once you are all set up, now when you first start a new process you might find that you will be spending a few hours a week on this, to perfect your process it will take time. But once it’s how you want it, try to only do 30 mins a week sourcing images and thinking of content.

Concentrate on 4

Ok so my biggest problem when I first started doing these was working on the basis that I had to have one for each day of the month, so was sat down trying to create 30 of these things and was meant to still be in love with them when I finished, when in reality by the 15^th I was sick of them.

So now, I’ve simplified it more, as an example, in October there were 5 Mondays, so at the end of September I created in Canva 5 of my Monday themed memes, transferred them to my other system Trello where I create the content and they were done, so within less than 15 mins all my Monday memes were ready for October, the following day 15 mins set aside and I done 5 Tuesday memes, and so on. I have managed to drop the length of time now as I am into the process, but at the start, I had to set a timer, and this will be the same for you.

Schedule

So once I have done my creating, I start to schedule my memes, I currently only schedule on Facebook, Pinterest and LinkedIn as I feel these are my most relevant platforms, I schedule direct on Facebook by use ContentCal for the rest of my scheduling (love it, it’s so visual), again because you have batched them into themes, you could on a Friday at the end of each month schedule in all Monday and Tuesday posts in one sitting, and so on.

These are some of the slight changes I have made to my meme and general posts to my social media, each of these small changes has given me back more time, and frankly, I find the whole
process less stressful, boring or monotonous.

Give is a go and let me know. Have you got any processes that save you time that you want to share with us?

Don’t forget I can help you with creating these, if you just find that this is something you desperately want to do, but no matter what process you have you just don’t have the time, then get in contact, I am happy to have a chat with you to see if I can I help you move forward from being stuck!

Getting the most out of your day

admin Benefit, Blogging, Logging Off, New boundaries, Office Hours, Outside your comfort zone, Push yourself, Social media, Uncategorized, Virtual help, Work life balance, Working hours April 26, 2017April 26, 2017Be Kind to yourself, blogging, Boss your business, Business Owner, Distractions, Help, home office, Lack of knowledge, Office hours, Outsourcing, Overworked, Productivity, Self Discipline, Small Business, Time Management, Virtual Assistant, Work Life Balance, Working Hours 1 Comment

Being a business owner is great, I love it, it is so rewarding, I work around my little family, get to do the school engagements, homework and make memories with them.

So, hands up all those that have fun trying to fit everything into their working day! Yep ME, I sometimes open my diary on Monday and think ‘What the heck’ and I can feel myself going into overdrive, but we need to remember we are human! We can only do what we can with the time we have.

National Stationery Week (honest)

I have found some useful hacks to get me through those hectic weeks. See I am a tech loving gal, but I do adore my stationary, a little apt as its National Stationary week this week, (it really is a thing check it out HERE), I do love writing things down, and trust me I have written down notes, keywords for this blog that you are reading now, before I drafted it and posted it to my website. No matter how much I try to move everything to electronic, my inner child just loves going into a stationary shop and buying lush books, pens and other amazing bits and bobs for my desk.

So here are a few hacks that I use to stay in control and get the most out of my work day:

I plan my week on Friday before, or latest on Sunday
Block out any long-standing commitments, I have 2 of these in my working week, and they are blocked out on my electronic diary and my desk diary every week, so I know that Tuesday 9.30-11.00 and Thursday 9.30-11.30 each week are blocked out regardless, I know I cannot book anything in during those times. So I work my other tasks around those times. I also know that I have the school run to do so that is blocked out.
Highlight ‘DFT’ Distraction Free Time, this is the time when all pings, dings and notifications are banished, use this time for when you NEED to have your head down with NO distractions, so turn off your phone, don’t open certain apps and programs. Imagine you are heading into a cave lol – I wrote about it HERE in a previous blog.
Colour coding, for me each of my clients has a colour code, this way it’s easy to see in my diary, who is blocked in where and when, but equally my business has a colour too, and I make sure that I give myself equal time to market and promote my business, as well as my own admin/finances etc.
Use systems to optimise your productivity, I use Trello and Canva, both are incredible in their own right, Trello is my go to program that holds all my social media content past and future, ideas, helpful information like Hashtags, advertising rules for Facebook groups etc, and Canva helps me create amazing images and Memes in a heartbeat.
Find tools that will aid you in progressing your business but not suck up all your time. Social Media alone is one of the biggest time suckers out there, we have all been there, nip on for 2 mins and bang 1hr gone, so use tools like Hootsuite etc to schedule in your daily/weekly posts, I do this every Friday for my content and my clients work, that way I don’t have to worry about it each day, and I haven’t lost stupid amounts of time on social media
Timer, I work with a timer, not only for my client work but for me too, I have noticed that as soon as I click on that go button, my procrastination waivers a little and find I am more productive knowing my timer is going. Before I used this I would happily waste time on what I thought was useful but turns out I was unproductive to my business.
Visible clock, again I have mentioned this before, you need to have a visible clock in your office, you need to be aware of the time you have left on that particular day, and if a task is taking too long, then schedule it for first thing the following day, give yourself a break from it. I have noticed since having a clock in my office I am more aware of my day, crazy I know but for me, it has really worked.
Set an alarm, remember you are not a 24/7 business, you have to eat, sleep, relax and do things you enjoy, you need to remember those office hours, if you do not have office/working hours in place, I urge you to set some this week. And make sure you stick to it. Can you imagine being in your old employed job and your boss tells you that you never log off!!!

These are just a few small hacks I have found very useful to my business, I hope they help you if you have any of your own do share them with us.

Get in touch

If it is becoming apparent that you are struggling to stay on top of your day to day tasks, and you are finding you are having less time to do those things that pull in the money, then why not get in touch, would love to have a chat and see if I can help you. You can connect here

Chat soon,

Are you a habit creature?

admin Benefit, Blogging, E-Marketing, Learn, New boundaries, New skill, Newsletter, Office Hours, Outside your comfort zone, Push yourself, Social media, Virtual help, Work life balance, Working hours April 11, 2017April 11, 2017Be Kind to yourself, blogging, Boss your business, Business Owner, e-marketing, focus, Help, home office, Lack of knowledge, Outsourcing, Overworked, Productivity, Self Discipline, Working Hours 0 Comment

Habits

We have all read those articles where they tell you ‘wake up at 5 am to become a millionaire’ or ‘drink a green smoothie to become successful’ – I think I have at least one of these articles in my inbox each week, telling me what I need to be doing to become a successful business owner.

Now I can tell you I DO NOT get up at 5 am, that to me is still the middle of the night, and I personally don’t like anything green to eat or drink so a green smoothie will never pass my lips. Ok I can tell you now I am not a millionaire nor would I say I was hugely successful (yet!). What I can tell you, is, my business is producing a wage and I am comfortable.

pinch of salt

I personally don’t think these lists of what you should do, will benefit you in that way, I think you need to read them with a pinch of salt and to use them to perfect your routines, to make you more productive and focused. I think it is great to read these articles and ones alike to see if anything they do could fit into your lifestyle and business routine if it doesn’t then move on.

I believe in normal ‘Sleep and Food’ – I feel eating and sleeping better does improve your productivity levels, whether this will, in turn, you into a millionaire who knows! We all know that when you was based in an office that Friday afternoon slump would kick in about an hour after you and your work colleagues got back from the pub, you know after that massive burger and chips you ate! I know from experience that massive lunch would turn me into the most UNPRODUCTIVE person ever.

Pub burger and chips = unproductive

I also feel that a healthy balance of exercise will help you towards a more productive week. Mixing that with your sleep and food, you should see a massive difference to your attention span during the week.

But none of these things I don’t feel will make you more successful nor do I think will make you a millionaire, these will help you to move forward and become the best you can be, and if that means it helps you create more business, then great, but I do wish these gurus would stop telling us these quick and sure-fire habits will fast track you to success.

You are the reason you are successful, you are the reason your clients what to work with you, not because you have a green smoothie on your desk!

To be honest, if you eat healthily, you exercise regularly, and sleep well you should see huge results in your productivity, use that to your advantage if you find you have more umpfh then use it to benefit you and the business.

So don’t be fooled with all the habits and routines that famous business owners are doing, as that works for them, remember running a business is not a one size fits all. You need to find the routine and habit that works for you and your business.

Right I am off to munch on some random piece of food that has become fashionable

Chat soon folks

The power is in your hands……………Honest

admin Benefit, E-Marketing, Learn, New skill, Newsletter, Outside your comfort zone, Push yourself, Social media, Virtual help, Work life balance, Working hours March 13, 2017March 13, 2017Boss your business, Business Owner, Distractions, e-marketing, focus, Help, Lack of knowledge, Market your business, newsletters, Outsourcing, Overworked, Self Discipline, Small Business, Small Business Owner, Support, VA, Virtual Assistant, Work Life Balance, working from home, You Time 0 Comment

Hey everyone, in my last blog I mentioned to you above trying to find your self-discipline, how has that gone? It can be a tricky one to grab hold of and run with, because of so many distractions, I also gave you some tips on how to cope and deal with those distractions.

This month

I want to talk to you about the importance of staying in touch with your crowd, we all know we can stay in touch via Social Media, but sometimes it’s just not enough is it. I have got into a good routine of keeping a check on my insights on my social platforms, I post at various times, some when my crowd are online and other times when they are not active, most of my crowd are online late afternoon/early evening, I do schedule posts for that time, but I do like to do things in real-time too.

In March’s newsletter, I spoke about the amazing competition that I won back in October 2016, which was run by the A.M.A.Z.I.N.G Emma Holmes of Coaching Rockstars. I had seen her posts on social media and a few friends through business had shared her post too, but still, didn’t feel compelled to enter it as I felt I wasn’t lucky enough. Then I had a Rockstar newsletter hit my inbox which went into more detail, with all the relevant links, it just spoke to me, I felt it resonated with me and the situation I was in at the time, it was that email just pushed me into entering, and how glad am I that I did! I have managed to spend time with some AWESOME, inspiring, knowledgeable women in the industry.

The power of e-marketing is huge and can have such an amazing effect on your business. You can reach out to your crowd with a push of a button, you know it will land in their inbox when you ask it too, and it will be filled with great content, you can get your message over in more depth, as on social platforms you don’t want to flood your crowds timelines nor make it too long. This way you can create that eye-catching content.

Winning this competition has change my business completely, and it landing in my inbox gave me that push to enter myself

I think how Emma ran her competition and made sure it landed in the right hands was amazing, she clearly knows her crowd and she knows how to make you feel that she is reading your mind. This IS something you can learn over time, but you need to start somewhere, so being in touch with your crowd regularly via a newsletter is key. You can grow your list with sign-up boxes and links to freebies, these are things I will be talking about in future blogs and newsletters.

Growing your list won’t happen over night, think back to my favourite saying “Slowly Slowly Catchy Monkey”

On the Social

Over the last few weeks on my page we have celebrated International Women’s Day, it’s a powerful day, and one that should be celebrated.

Also, I shared a video from Eric Thomas who claims there is no such thing as procrastination, he says people get it confused with something that is of no interest to you, so in turn have no desire to do the task, what do you think?

I also touched upon a subject that is close to my heart and to a few fellow Virtual Assistants, over recent weeks I have seen a few small business owners getting frustrated that people are either late paying or the next worst thing asking for a discount! As I stated on my page, I do not give discounts, I have packages that benefit my clients, I may give a discount should they recommend me, but I will not give a discount off the cuff! You can read that post HERE

Build A Door!

Why wait? I asked my followers why wait for that business to find you, sitting in your office behind the PC isn’t going to pay the bills, you have to be active looking for business, you need to get yourself out there, be bold, be bright, be seen (I’m sure that’s a tagline for crossing the road!) If opportunity isn’t knocking then build a door! What do you do? do you go networking, or have another avenue you go down to generate leads and business? share with us what you do.

Sign-up

You can still sign up to my newsletter by clicking here >>>

If you have anything you need help with or want me to discuss then leave me a comment, I have a huge list of thigs that I want to share with you over time, so do let me know as I could be doing a series that could benefit you.

Don’t forget I have my freebie – What to ask your Virtual Assistant, I created this to help those that are hoping to hire a VA in the near future or maybe changing to a new one, its just a small guide to help you.

If you are struggling to stay on top of things and wondering if outsourcing is the way forward for you and your business, I am happy to have a chat with you to help you decide. It suits some but not all.

Find your…..Self discipline

admin E-Marketing, Logging Off, Office Hours, Social media, Virtual help, Work life balance, Working hours February 24, 2017February 24, 2017Distractions, focus, home office, Outsourcing, Productivity, Time Management, VA, Virtual Help, working from home 9 Comments

Dig Deep

Being a business owner comes with many hats and guises, you have to dig deep to get done what you have to get done, and even deeper when it’s something you just don’t want to do. Have you found yourself writing list upon list of things that you have to get done on a certain day/week? I know I have and have often failed to cross much off due to daily distractions.

If you are lucky enough to be working away from home, then those distractions maybe less (I say maybe in a light tone), I know for me I work from home, and I use to have a million distractions in my working day, from my online shopping being delivered, the odd person who sees my car on the drive and pops in for a cuppa as I’m home (forgetting that my home is my office), housework, and the biggest distraction is the kids! I am fortunate enough now to have my office out in the garden, so I am away from those daily household distractions.

I now have my set working hours each day of the week, and I now have a set period of time each week that is focussed on my business, but as you know working from home you can’t help yourself but get distracted.

This is where self-discipline comes into play, what can you do to stop yourself being distracted, how do you get that discipline into your working life?

So grab a pen, pad and a coffee, here are some tips to help you:

* ‘Distraction Free Time’ Try and block 20mins a day, or better still 20 mins in the morning and 20 mins in the afternoon, set that time as pure DFT time, turn your phone to silent, turn off the programs you are not using, those pings and little red notification dots are hugely distracting, and one that needs to be removed from your DFT block. It’s something about your phone and those notifications that can waste a lot of your working day. So for this time that you block out its best to remove the temptation.

* ‘Natural productive time’ everyone has it, I am not a morning person, if my children wake me too early I go green! so setting my alarm to wake before the kids to do work it’s just not in my DNA, but I am a late person, so for me my most productive time of the day is evenings, I find that knowing the kids are fed and in bed, we have had dinner, there are no further distractions (apart from The Walking Dead!), so I know that its head down and get on with my work. This is MY natural productive time, I do however get lots done when they are at school. But my content is normally written of an evening when my productive time is at its best. So you need to find out when you are at your most productive! you might be that person that does love that hour before the house wakes up if so you need to incorporate it into your working day.

* Procrastination! Ok, I am going to jump outside the box on this one, and instead of saying it’s bad it’s this and it’s that, I will simply say embrace it! Shock Horror!!!!!! why embrace it, well I find that if you can pinpoint what it is that makes you procrastinate, once you have figured out why you can almost learn how to deal with it. For an example, I hate anything accounts based, so I often find when I’m sat here having to do that type of work it takes me much longer to do it, I keep trying to put it off, in hope that the accounts fairy will come along swish her wand and hey presto it’s done or failing that tomorrow it will become more appealing, which sadly neither happens.

So I have now learnt to schedule it into either my DFT or do it during the evening when I’m at my peak of productivity. Don’t shy away from those jobs that make you the world’s greatest procrastinator! We are all procrastinators, it happens to all of us at some point during our week. If they are jobs you have to do find the best time to do them, or failing that outsource!!

Ready to outsource?

* As I happened to mention ‘Outsource’ this is something else that can benefit you and your self-discipline, if you can offload work to someone else this will free up your time to do what you are good at in your business, but you have to be disciplined to outsource, you need to figure out what is taking up too much of your time, and find someone you can outsource to like a VA, but you need to be strong and let that person do what you have given them!!!

If you are wanting to outsource but haven’t a clue where to start, then check out my free download, this gives you the top things to ask a potential Virtual Assistant, we know what it’s like when you get on the phone, those questions vanish, and when you hang up you remember!

Be strong, stay focused and remember this is your business, run it the way you want to run it, but get the best out of your time, hopefully, some of the above tips may help.

What tips would you offer a new business owner? what have you found has worked for you? Leave a comment below you never know it may just help a newbie in their self-employment dream.

Take care

Claire

Fresh Month…..

admin Blogging, E-Marketing, Newsletter, Social media, Virtual help, Work life balance February 10, 2017February 10, 2017blogging, Boss your business, Business Owner, e-marketing, Lack of knowledge, Market your business, newsletters, No time, Support, VA, Virtual Assitant, Work Life Balance 0 Comment

We made it!!!!

Hey, everyone, we have appeared to have slinked through into a new month of 2017, and have got past all the expectations of setting goals, resolutions and hitting that weight goal you set on the 1st January 😉 (if you have share you secret!)

End of January saw 2 things for me here at RAS Towers, firstly was my business anniversary, yay go me, and secondly, I revamped my packages. I had a lot of interest through December and January from clients that needed help with their E-Marketing. We all know how important it is, but do we all have that spare time?

What is E-Marketing?

We hear this term thrown around everywhere, you must be on the e-marketing wagon, blah blah, which in essence is true, but sometimes as much as we think we should be doing something we hear, we may not always know what it is and how important it is.

So, basically e-marketing, in a nutshell, is getting your name/business/brand out there, but using electronic ways to do it. Back before email, faxing and internet our marketing was done via paper versions of what we send out now, we all used to send out flyers, advertise in papers, shop windows etc, but now its done electronically, that’s the e part ;-), so now in 2017, e-marketing is your emails that you send out, your advertising on various social media platforms, your blog etc.

It is such a valuable part of your business, getting yourself out there and being seen regularly, we all know it, let’s face it, it’s been hammered into us since the day we started our businesses right! And I do stand by with the masses and agree, that it is a vital tool in your arsenal to grow the business.

But the issue most have is either the lack or knowledge or the lack of time, one or both of these things are enough to make you put that thought back on the back-burner right!

Well, this is where a Virtual Assistant (aka ME) comes in handy. See this is our job, we have the time to create these things for you, and where we have been doing things like this for many a year, we have the knowledge too, and we need to have the knowledge so we can offer our help to you.

Why is it important?

Being in contact regularly with your crowd is so important, you can convey your message to them in one fail swoop, send them out your latest offers, freebies, event details, you name it you can send it and stay in touch.

You become a person, not just a business, you are putting your personality out there to run alongside you and your knowledge of your business, we all get those random emails once or twice from people, and let’s face it, they are the emails that we normally just bin, but as soon as you start getting a regular email from someone, that has a great subject line, and it jam packed with great content that you want and need to know

So what’s the winning formula!

Consistency, followed by great useful content, and a mix of hints, tips, offers and a swig of personality, this is your formula, being you, sharing your knowledge with others, you need to look at the problems your crowd have and then sell them their solution that they are desperate to find. You will find over time your writing style will change and your content will become fuller as you get more confident, starting off is always hard and nerve wracking.

So having someone like me taking the stresses and burdens of creating this template that screams YOU, will help you a lot, all you will have to do is create the content.

Do you have a list that you have grown? do you want a list to send out to? how do you grow a list or even start? these are the questions I can help you with, I had sent out some ideas on my monthly newsletter, which you can sign up to HERE – but also over the next few weeks I will be talking about this on my Facebook page, come and say hi here

If this is something you really need help with then, please come and have a chat with me, I would love to help you.

Love

Claire

Logging Off…….You can do it honest!

admin Logging Off, Office Hours, Social media, Virtual help, Work life balance, Working hours January 16, 2017January 12, 2017Be Kind to yourself, Help, Hobby, Logging Off, Office hours, Outsourcing, Overworked, Self Discipline, Small Business, Small Business Owner, Time, Virtual Assistant, Work Life Balance, Working Hours, You Time 0 Comment

I don’t know about you, but when it gets to a certain time of day I seem to struggle to log off, ever since launching my business and I became a small business owner, I constantly feel compelled to stay logged on and producing more work, more Facebook posts, more tweets, more memes, just more in general.

But when is enough really enough? As I have mentioned in previous blogs, I had to get strict with myself purely for my own sanity. There I was constantly telling you all to free up some time and have quality time with your loved ones or even do your hobby, and there I was still logged on churning out work.

So, when I felt slightly burnt out Mr RAS put his foot down and reminded me that I started this business to firstly to fit around our small family, followed on by helping fellow business owners take control of their time, and help them with their tasks, and he was right, burning myself out wasn’t helping anyone, least of all myself, as I was creating a monster that was going to implode one day.

So, I sat there and redrew my plans for the business and for the family, and not surprising my family came up first, which I think I would have been surprised if they hadn’t. But I had a massive shake up, I set myself proper working hours, and a dedicated late night for online networking and that’s it!

This has been in full swing now for a few months, things have gotten a little easier now both of my children are in full-time school, so a lot of client work is getting done during my office hours and not when the children have gone to bed, don’t get me wrong, if one of my clients comes to me in a real bother and urgently needed help, then of course I will try my hardest to help them out of that hole they are in.

You owe it to yourself, and your growing business to be firm with your expectation, I bet when you was employed in the corporate world, come 5.30pm you was out that door queuing to get out of the car park, so why are you still sat there at 8-9pm at night working! And I bet you have even taken your laptop to the family room to work, to make it feel like you’re still part of the family! And then you wonder why your body feels like you have gone 10 rounds with Tyson!

Now is the time for tough love!

Top 5 tips on getting our time back

Sit down and set realistic working hours, I have set mine as 9.30-3.00 then 6-6.30 (finishing off any rogue tasks) and one late night on a Tuesday for online networking.
Plan your week, this needs to be done on one of 3 days, either Friday afternoon before you log off for the weekend and finalise the week you have had, or Sunday afternoon fresh from the weekend, fresh eyes, fresh mind or first thing Monday morning before you check anything else and get waylaid by any other tasks. Personally, I prefer Friday afternoon or Sunday afternoon, there are fewer chances of me getting distracted.
Schedule, there are loads of free tools out there for you to use in order to schedule your posts/tweets etc, I personally use the free version of Hootsuite – with this I can schedule in my post for Facebook (I have my business page linked to it) I can also schedule my tweets, I have my Google+ and LinkedIn accounts connected to my Hootsuite. I recommend to try and schedule in around 2 posts a day on Facebook, and one on other platforms, Twitter is different as it’s so fast paced so it depends on how visible you are on it depends on how many you need to be tweeting, you need a consistent stream on all your platforms, I believe Instagram and Pinterest have their own scheduling tools built in, Whilst on that note, Facebook do have their own scheduling tool built in which is brilliant, so if you only use Facebook then that will be perfect.
If something isn’t working, then take a 10 min break, go grab a bite to eat or a cuppa, don’t sit there stressing and letting it consume you, if it’s a task that seems to be beating you, then ask a friend or see if you can find an accountability buddy that you can bounce off, fresh eyes can sometimes help a fuzzy situation, just because you work at home for yourself, it doesn’t mean you have to be isolated and alone!
Lastly, if things are just getting out of hand, and no matter what you are doing, you can’t get on top of your workload, then maybe it is time for you to look at outsourcing. Now this word often generates fear and anxiety amongst business owners, I can pretty much bet my shoes that you have a friend that has used someone in the past for outsourcing and it turned into an absolute nightmare. This doesn’t have to be the case, if you do your research, connect with people and join some relevant business groups, you will soon grab some tips on how to find someone suitable, or you could connect with me and I can either help you with your issues, or give you some guidance on finding someone that you wish to work with.

Try and put these in practice, you owe it to yourself, your mind body and soul as well as your family to get a grip with your workload and working hours.

Give them a go and let me know how you get on, change needs to happen, if it doesn’t you will just run yourself into utter exhaustion.

Love

Claire x

Keeping Track of your work time

admin Social media, Virtual help, Work life balance January 6, 2017January 9, 2017Help, Outsourcing, Self Discipline, Small Business, Small Business Owner, Time, Time Management, Time Tips, VA, Virtual Assistant, Work Life Balance 0 Comment

So in my last blog we spoke about logging off, and that we not only owe it to ourselves but to our nearest and dearest, we need that time to relax and let our bodies and brains relax. We forget that our loved ones have to put up with us being snippy, tired and stressed.

I had set you a goal last time, I suggested that you were to sit down and work out your opening/working hours and stick to them, so did you? how did it work out for you? fill me in and let me know if putting in place those set hours has made a difference. I would go as far as to say I bet you have been slightly more productive, I know that sounds weird, but it’s true, if you have a finish time in sight then you work towards that goal, and lets face it at the end of the day life and work are all based on goals, and your clocking off time in business is no different, its a goal.

So keeping track of work time is the subject of today’s blog, I don’t know about you, but in my employed days we didn’t have a timer per say, but we had targets that had to be met by certain deadlines, we would have weekly catch-up meetings, during those meetings we had tasks that were assigned to us, once they were finished, we were all circulated the minutes with our new or ongoing tasks on there, how we chose to keep track of them was a personal choice, some would enter them into their email calendar system, some would use the team project management tool, it was what worked for you.

This stands true for you now, you need to find a system that is going to work for you and your business, what you may have used in days gone by, might not work for you today. But you need to keep track of your work time and the tasks you are doing during the day. If you don’t keep track this is when the working over your hours and late nights start to creep back in, and this is what we are trying to avoid.

Logging Off!

For me at the moment, I have an inbuilt clock that tells me that I need to be out of my home office no later than 2.55pm to get to school on time to start collecting the children, and would be a BIG NO NO in my children’s eyes should they be left at the school door.

But, I also use a few tools to help me stay focused and on track with time, we all need a toolkit in business, don’t we!

Asana

I use this a fair amount to keep track of client projects that I am doing, and is great as my clients can add things too, this is fab for keeping track on your progress and time spent on projects.

Trello

So this is similar to Asana, but this is for my own personal progress and work projects, this is my system for keeping track of what I am doing, what I want to do, what I need to do, it is incredibly easy to use, and user-friendly. I use Trello for most of my content ideas.

Email calendar

I use this daily for those things that aren’t necessarily a project but could be a call, webinar, or an appointment that needs keeping, and let’s face it your clocking off time is really an appointment, isn’t it. So why not put your end time on the calendar so it goes off at the end of your working day. Better still set 2 reminders, 1 to go off 10 mins before you finish to overview what you have achieved and what needs to be done tomorrow, and the other to say home time 🙂

These are the 3 biggies I use daily in conjunction with each other as well as my screaming internal clock at 2.55PM ‘SCHOOL RUN, SCHOOL RUN’ that helps me stay on track. Here are a list of other things and tips that may help you in the quest for time keeping and time management:

Bullet Journal (paper planner fab and very addictive)
Mind Mapping (empty out your mind with all your ideas, as they can slow you down)
Use one calendar and sync with all devices
Turn off all distractions, yes including Facebook, it may be your main lead generator, but it is also your biggest time waster (trust me!)
Set a visible clock, sounds daft but it will work, it’s too easy to ignore that one in the bottom right of your screen
Set 30 minutes aside every morning to plan your day and set out your time planner, this will help you stay on track, and don’t forget to pencil in distraction time, lets face it we all get distracted, but at least if we account for it, it’s not eating into our productive time.

Nothing is set it stone here, I am only trying to offer some solutions to the problem, maybe one thing might work, maybe more will work, who knows, until you give something a go you just won’t know, will you? One size does not fit all when it comes to business.

Remember, if you are still struggling and you need help or advice, or should you wish to outsource, or discuss outsourcing, then I am always here for a chat, I do offer free 30 min phone consults. If you want to chat here’s how:

Keeping track of your time - how to contact me — How to get in contact

So let me know if you try any of these, would love to hear your comments.

Take care, have a fab week, don’t forget to have a summary of the week before you log off tonight and plan from next week.

Love

Claire x

Learning something new………

admin Benefit, Learn, New boundaries, New skill, Outside your comfort zone, Push yourself, Social media, Uncategorized, Virtual help, Work life balance December 15, 2016February 27, 2017Back to school, Boss your business, Business Owner, focus, Help, Lack of knowledge, Learn something new, Small Buisness, Small Business Owner, Time Management, VA, Work Life Balance 0 Comment

Remember the days of employment, when HR would send you an email saying something like:

Dear Claire, Here at XYZ Ltd, we like to keep on top of the latest trends to grow our business, with this in mind HR and your Line Manager Mrs Blog feel that you would benefit greatly by attending the 2-day intensive course.

Do you remember getting those through, and how the thought just filled you with sheer boredom! I remember them well, and for me, it was things that I had no major interest in but it was to the benefit of the company more so than me.

On the week running up to this 2-day course you would have to cram all your workload into a couple of days to cover you being out of the office, and then off you trot to this course that was always miles away, participate in the breakout sessions, lunch with random’s and stuck travelling home again to have to do it all again tomorrow.

I know I paint a dismal picture but some of those offsite training days for me were a nightmare, we always had a tonne of work on and they always fell at the wrong times. But it was always something extra to put on your C.V. 🙂

Why is it different now?

So you are sitting there wondering why the heck have I titled this ‘Learning something new’ well you see this time you are learning to benefit YOU and YOUR business, I know it sounds selfish and probably ungrateful that any of my employers paid out money for me to attend these training courses, but learning something new now as a business owner, is something that interests you, and let’s face it, if you have to sit there and learn at least learn something that you want to learn.

I vowed to myself this year that I was going to learn a new skill or perfect an old skill each year, or if I am lucky maybe 2 new skills, this will not only benefit me but my clients too, I have since started my own business gained experience in many new fields, ones that I had no clue on as previously I would have had a department to call to sort the problem out.

So ask yourself a question, if you could learn a new skill or perfect an old skill for your business this year what would it be?

For me, I want to get to grips with basic photo/video editing, I have started to incorporate video marketing into my business as I feel this will help me get a step up in the small business world, as we as humans are so visual, we like to see or watch something over reading 80 pages of the same content, it’s just how we are.

Tell me in the comments box below what would you like to learn this year?

Don’t forget if you are struggling with your admin, or have tasks that you really just don’t want to do, why not contact me and see if I can help you. You never know we could plan your future success together.

Also, why not sign up for my downloadable freebie, ‘Top tips for delegating to your Virtual Assistant’ a quick guide of an easy way to let go of some of your precious work.

Take care

Claire x