I don’t know about you, but I love the spring…seeing everything coming back to life, flowers pushing their way through the ground, lambs in the field next door to me and 
everything feels fresh and new. The only downside is that the grass grows at a phenomenal rate, so I’m out on the sit-on lawnmower a lot! But even that gives me a weird sense of pleasure…my thinking time!
On my last batch of lawn mowing, I was thinking about my writing work, as I often do, and about a couple of articles I’d read recently about how productivity can be boosted by simply having a clean and clear desk space – I guess the this saying sprang to mind, “A cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind”. This rings a bit true for me, because while I constantly make lists about everything, from my daily work ‘to do’ list to shopping to what I need to do around the house and garden, I am a maker of ‘piles’. I have piles of books, papers, a ‘to do‘pile of stuff that needs looking at urgently etc. etc.
Piles of paper
I’ve always thought that my piles of stuff were a kind of organisation – I know where everything is; it’s my system and it works for me. In reality, it doesn’t, there have been several times recently where I couldn’t find something important…because I’d put it ‘somewhere safe’ in a pile of other paper. I’ve always found what I’m looking for in the end, but this has taken up precious time and effort…if I’d had a designated space for my piles of stuff, I’d know for sure where everything is.
Dump the piles!
It’s quite simple to get rid of the piles of ‘stuff’. The answer is organisation.
- Go through the piles of stuff and organise the paper into an order – you might have bills to be paid, articles to read, stuff that needs filing. Whatever it might be take a few minutes to sort things out. Use a filing cabinet or shelving system to organise yourself – maybe use box files or lever arch files to put the same kind of thing in one place.
- Have an inbox with things that need doing today, such as bills you can pay online, a reminder to email someone or ring someone. When those things have been done, file them away.
- Throw out anything you don’t need – there’s bound to be things you no longer need or use, so bin it!
Go paperless – in our world of recycling and conserving the environment, it amazes me how many people don’t do online banking, for example. It’s so much easier that sifting through page after page of bank statements, when you can do it at a click of the mouse. I do appreciate that not everyone is computer savvy, but as much as possible, get rid of everything ‘paper’ that you can.- Schedule in a 15-20 minute session a week to clean your desk and surrounding work space. This will help you keep things organised and won’t allow you to let your piles build up again!
- If you have documents that you need to keep, scan them into your computer and save them in a file. These things don’t have to take up valuable space on your computer, you can use one of the many free cloud storage devices, such as Dropbox, G Drive or iCloud.
- If you use an office desk, take everything out of the drawers, be ruthless and throw away anything that you no longer need or use – if you have anything with personal information on it, burn it or shred it. Organise your drawers, so you will know where everything is at a glance.
- If you have loads of electronic devices, chances are you’ll have a spaghetti-like muddle of cables and wires. That can be distracting or sometimes, even dangerous. Get them organised using a cable organisation system or those plastic ties. There are loads of products to help you with this – simply Google search or look on Amazon.
Finally, I just LOVE stationery! I have an abundance of pens, pads, staplers and little gadgets, but do I really need them all? I like to have them, but I don’t necessarily need them all on show on my desk, so if you’re the same, it’s time to find a place to put them…in a drawer, or in a box within a drawer, so you know where they are. Actually, having all my bits and bobs in a box within a drawer means I can buy some more stationery (!)…the little boxes to put everything in! Probably not a good idea, but works for me!
How does this boost productivity?
A clean and clear office space will help you feel more organised and motivated, whereas a messy space makes for muddled thoughts and needless stress.
A cluttered desk also serves as a distraction, so if it’s clean, you can be more focused on what you need to do.
Stress plays a bit part in most of our lives, and a huge pile of paper can make you feel that the hill is too big to climb; it’s overwhelming.
So, with a clean and clear desk space, you can start the day knowing where everything is, knowing what is a priority for the day and you’ll be able to be more focused on what needs to be done.
What do you do to help keep your desk space uncluttered and keep your mind clear to focus on your work? I’d love to hear from you!
quiet after the Christmas period and January seems to go on forever…or is that just me? It’s a time when we feel lethargic and I always think January feels like a bit of a let-down after the festivities of Christmas and New Year…..a bit like my Chimp friend here on the right!
Physical – everything your customers see and feel when interacting with your business. This can be from the physical environment of your shops, office or wherever you provide and showcase your products or services, to meeting you face to face and how you come across to them, how you act and relate to your customers. It also includes your packaging and your branding.
a particular product, but just saying you want to sell more isn’t enough – you need to be specific, so you have something concrete to aim for. For example, say you have a crafting business and you make rag dolls. An objective might be to sell 40% more rag dolls in 2019, than you did in 2018. This gives you a solid and specific objective.
Once you have your list of objectives, put them into a timeline – what you want to achieve and by when. This makes it much easier for you to review at a later date. I usually put a date in my diary at the beginning of the year to review my business objectives every three months…of course, I’m not always brilliant at keeping to that date, but by having it in my diary, at least it’s a reminder and I do review things…even if it’s a couple of weeks after the date I originally set!
dolls over the next 12 months. You know what you want to do – you know when you want that result. How are you going to sell that extra 40%? These could be some of your options…
The last thing on your list is how will you measure the success of each of your objectives? Sticking with the rag doll example, this is an easy one – each quarter, measure how many more dolls you have sold compared to the same time last year. To achieve your 40% increase over the course of the year, you need to see a steady increase in sales from the new selling strategies you’ve put in place.
OK, so you’ve tested whether you can be found, you’ve registered your business to make it easier to be found in search engines. Now you need to look at your website and ensure you have the right keywords and phrases in place.
If you are a creative person, you may find that everyday jobs like email, accounts, taxes, marketing, social media or marketing, a distraction from what you want to be focussing on. Hiring someone to do those jobs for you is a great option, and hiring in an expert gives you peace of mind that everything will be done to a high standard and you can stop worrying about it.
Running your own business can be very isolating and this can be depressing if you were previously used to working in a busy environment. There are always local groups of small businesses who get together to network, have lunch and generally chat about their businesses. Join some of those groups and meet other people … it’s highly motivating to talk to someone who is enthusiastic about what they do and that energy is contagious and will help you to revive your excitement about your business.
When you’re first in business, it’s like being in love. Exhilarating, exciting, stimulating. Then, after a while, it might feel like your business is losing its appeal, it’s become humdrum and a bit boring, as reality of day to day life sets in. It’s hard work and maybe not as financially rewarding as you hoped…and it makes you tired and irritable.
So what’s the secret to rekindling the love for your business? Remind yourself of all the good things…make a list of all that’s good about your business, the positive things it brings you. What really matters to you and what ignited that spark to be in business in the first time? And finally, never lose hope, being in business for yourself isn’t a bed of roses, but with a little bit of patience and effort, you can learn to love it again and keep it alive and kicking.
I came across an article online the other day about a slimming club. It gave the most amazing stories about people who had lost a lot of weight by changing the way they think about food. Then it occurred to me that this mind-set could apply to marketing. We’re all guilty of thinking that the hill is impossible to climb and that, in itself, puts obstacles in our way.
the Marketing and Communications department, I wanted to go for a promotion. In a meeting with my boss, she told me that if I wanted to go further and get my next grade, I needed to act like I already had that grade. So I looked at the criteria for the next grade and started learning how to do some of things that required and started acting like I was doing the job. After a relatively short time, I was promoted – my behaviours had changed and, instead of sitting there wishing I was the next grade up, I worked and thought as if I was already there. Applying this to small businesses, by learning the right marketing behaviours and practicing them, over time you will become more successful at marketing.
If a free ‘gift’ is being offered, such as the cookery cards, they are giving you something to try in the hope that you’ll be impressed, like them and then buy their product. Similarly, if you sign up to a monthly newsletter, it might be that you get some great information, but at some point there will be an opportunity to try a training course, or buy an e-book. Of course, there is no obligation to do this and you’ll still get the information, but it’s a great marketing ploy to plug your business. And the way the CTA is written doesn’t give you time to think – the ‘do it now’ approach with no obligation means you have nothing to lose – it encourages you to respond straight away.
You may find someone or a few people who you could collaborate with. For example if you’re a hairdresser, you might want to team up with a make-up artist, so you can pull together a package for weddings or prom events. You can put a link to their website on yours and vice versa.
If you’re a blogger, arrange to interview an influential person in your niche…someone who is an expert or leading authority on the kind of thing you do. You could interview them as a podcast or use it for a blog post. Either way, once published, that person will tell his/her contacts about the interview and point them to it…and you will get more traffic to your blog/website and the possibility of them using your products or services.
adding this to your resolution list.
The Write Way 