His and Hers Rules for Working from Home

Do you work from home? Are you thinking about it? I’ve been home-based since 2007 and I love it – I relish the autonomy, the flexibility and simply being able to look out of my window and see the red kites soaring over the garden.  And of course, working from home comes into its own [...]

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Make New Year’s Resolutions Worth Keeping with the One Goal Rule

January is traditionally the month for making resolutions. Like it or not, even Ebay and other organisations use this theme, to market their sites after Christmas.
The problem is, around 60-80% of all resolutions are broken in the first few weeks!
If your intention is to make more effective (and lasting) resolutions [...]

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‘Out With The Old, In With The New’ – How Taking Stock Can Deliver Ultimate Business Success

How has 2009 been for you?  What is your greatest achievement?  What are you really proud of this year?
If it’s been a tough year for you, in which you experienced more lows than highs, then you may be forgiven for not wanting to dwell too much on it, by moving on.  However, it is [...]

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6 Productivity Tips to Manage an IT crisis in your Home Office

When I experienced problems with my new business broadband that lasted more than 2 months, my productivity was under threat and communication became a bit of a challenge, to say the least! Often there was little certainty that I could go online when I needed to send messages or files.
Having a Plan B was crucial [...]

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Why Perfection Can Add to Seasonal Stress

The media can often make us believe that with the right amount of preparation the Christmas celebration can be perfect: a romantic festive period during which work parties are always fun, family gatherings go well, people are relaxed, with everyone showing their best side. And last but not least …. we look and feel fantastic [...]

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3 Top Tips for a Stress-Free Christmas Season

Doesn’t time just seem to be speeding up at this time of year?! For a lot of women this is the busiest time of year with so much to fit in.
Pressure, heavy demands on your time and the need to juggle different commitments can take its toll on physical or mental wellbeing. If you think [...]

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It’s just a job – or is it?

Last week was a relatively busy week and I was ready to enjoy a quiet weekend.
There had been several business meetings and events during the week, some productive and others not. However I did meet some interesting people in the process – like the lady at a local business event for women planning on starting [...]

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How Grouping Similar Tasks Leads to Higher Productivity

I had an IT crisis a few weeks ago when not just one thing went wrong! From broadband problems to my laptop crashing and lots of other things in-between, I was feeling challenged and had to approach my work in completely new ways so that my productivity wouldn’t go totally out of the window.
The one [...]

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Nine Tips to Help Busy Women ‘Maxi-Task’ Rather Than Multi-Task

Following on from yesterday’s blog about ‘Multitasking not being the key to higher productivity’, here now are 9 Tips to help busy business women under pressure to keep up with the different demands on their time.
These 9 tips will help you ‘maxi-task’ rather than multi-task:
1. Accept that multitasking may not be good for you [...]

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Why Multitasking Is Not The Key to Higher Productivity

Are you a busy woman who is an expert at multitasking and who can juggle a million and one things? Women, who run a business from home, tend to view their ability to multitask as a requirement to help them try and fit in everything that needs to be done. But is it actually helpful, or a hindrance to productivity?

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How losing time – and my way- helped me regain clarity and focus

“OK, I give up… No I don’t…. Yes I do” ….. And I did!
About a year ago, I got hopelessly lost trying to attend a business event in Bracknell.
For some reason I always find it challenging to find my way round Bracknell, whatever navigation system I use. However my regular readers may know that I [...]

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Simple Performance Tips for Successful Businesswomen

It is said that there are a hundred ways to improve your game, and the most important, perhaps, is to get out there and play it. And we all know that ‘practice makes perfect’, but it can be hard to perfect your game in business when you are dealing with too many uncertainties. Whether in [...]

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9 Time Management and Productivity Tips for Busy Business Mums

Lack of time is one of the main challenges shared by busy women in business who have to balance lots of different commitments and are constantly on the go.
Before you think about how you manage your time, remember time management starts with good self-management.
Make sure you have set yourself achievable work and home goals, [...]

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Achieving Success By Turning Procrastination into Action- Tip 5

Tip 5. Use a Small Trick to get Started
When faced with a task you can no longer ignore, typical avoidance tactics are to go and have a coffee, make a call and chat to someone, surf the internet, or pick a much easier task off the list, pretending it is more important.
Next time you hear [...]

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The disempowering impact of feedback

Feedback is seen by most of us as the lifeline to on going improvement. Independents, who have left the corporate world, may even see the lack of feedback as what they miss the most from their previous life. So why is it that I talk about the destructive power of feedback?
Well this morning I have [...]

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Achieving Success By Turning Procrastination into Action – Tip 4

Tip 4- Get Prepared
One of the best ways to focus on the task in hand is to make sure you have everything you need before you start. Think of it like baking a cake: in the kitchen you would clear a surface, gather all the ingredients together and go through the process step by step. [...]

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Achieving Success by Turning Procrastination into Action- Tip 3

Tip 3: Set Small Goals
“Whoever wants to reach a distant goal must take small steps.” Helmut Schmidt
When a piece of work is overwhelming it is much easier to break it down into bite-size manageable steps. These actions can then be put on the To Do list with individual end times. Some tasks may even be [...]

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Achieving Success by Turning Procrastination into Action- Tip 2

Tip 2- Focus on the Benefits of Achieving Tasks
When lacking motivation to get started, it helps to think ahead and imagine yourself as having completed the task. By visualising a positive outcome and focusing on the benefits of the task, you have a clearer understanding of why the task is important to you.
Try to [...]

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Achieving Success by Turning Procrastination into Action -Tip 1

“I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.” Jerome K Jerome
Procrastination is something we are probably all familiar with, being able to produce a list of overdue jobs that we never get round to.
Even with a well structured To Do List there will always be the odd task [...]

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No Time for Social Media? Suffering from Information Overload?

When I joined Twitter a few weeks ago, one of my pressing questions was how to manage an ever-increasing influx of information, considering that I also use email, read and write articles, newsletters and blogs, and I am active on Facebook, Ecademy, and LinkedIn.
Apparently, social networking increases our effectiveness, according to a pan-European survey*, in [...]

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