7 Great Reasons to Work from Home

working from home

Whether you work from home on a permanent or part-time basis, you run your own business or you usually work in an office, there are great reasons for it: 1. You can work flexibly.  You’re not tied to the 9-5 and you can plan your day around other non-work activities. 2. You can get up…

Read More

Networking Tips: #38 Why do you do it?

Networking Group

If you regularly network, have you lost your networking mojo?  Do you go along just because you’ve got into the habit or your regular meetings? Think about what you want to get from your networking.  All the time and money you put in to your business needs to give you a return – whether that’s…

Read More

Networking Tip: #37 What NOT to do

Networking Group

In the last week I’ve had two very clear examples of how NOT to network. Example 1: You accept a connection invite from someone online because they look interesting, they’re in your target group, you know some of the same people, there’s an element of shared interest … The very next communication you receive is…

Read More

Women In Business

Working women and women in business

While much of the business world is still male dominated, it is changing, slowly.  Women have been in the workplace for less time than men and still earn less – even for doing the same job. I’ve seen the rapidly expanding growth of women’s business networks, where women get together to support other like-minded women.…

Read More

Lower productivity in open plan offices

open plan offices and lower productivity

A recent study shows that working in open plan offices reduces performance and increases fatigue. It’s not an easy environment in which to be productive. Easy to put up, easy to reconfigure, there is no privacy and little to stop noise, voices and ringing phones carrying across the office space. You’re separated from your neighbours…

Read More

Get Productive: Writing effective emails

book a time to chat

Email is intended as a quick and efficient way of communicating – consider the following email etiquette guidelines when writing your emails to make them more effective. Be concise and to the point, don’t waffle on for pages and pages.  Keep it to 2-3 screens of information – or put the information in an attachment.…

Read More

After the workshop is over …

Takeaways when the workshop is over

You’ve just come back from a really inspiring workshop – full of great ideas and you have a list of all the tips and information you’ve absorbed, enthused with all the things you’re going to do and change. You get home – it’s been a long day, so you grab a bite to eat, switch…

Read More

Eating lunch at work is bad for you

Don't eat lunch at work

Yet more research on the detriment of not taking a proper lunch break.  Especially if you’re one of the 54% of office workers who work through your lunch break. We have a culture of working long hours – there’s almost an unofficial competition as to who can work the most hours, get in first and…

Read More

The myth of Inbox zero

Inbox zero myth

Email is one of the top things that gets in the way of being productive – although it’s a tool in itself, it’s also a source of great time wasting. Not only because of the shear volume of emails you receive on a daily basis but because of the time you spend dealing with it.…

Read More

Serial multitaskers – worse than they think

The problem with serial multitaskers

The impact multi-tasking has and the fact that it’s actually not as effective as we might think. Or at least those who think they’re great at multi-tasking are likely to be the worst. It also relates to another news item I saw recently about accident prone texters – oblivious to the world around them –…

Read More