Time is something which we never have enough of! Over the past 8 months time management has become an increasing problem for so many of us. If you were struggling to manage time before the Coronavirus hit then you must have felt the impact even more so. As well as trying to manage our ‘work time’ efficiently, back in March we were given the ordeal of having to ensure staff had the technical capabilities to be able to work remotely from home, which most businesses were not prepared for. Then the government announced that schools were closing, and like you didn’t have enough to do, you became a teacher to your children.
The challenges of running a business accompanied with all these COVID contributing factors put great pressure on many business owners.
Here at Two Birds Resources we saw that businesses needed that additional support more than ever, and since lockdown we have built a great client base, supporting various businesses with their admin and social media.
Organisation
It’s critical to plan your workload to ensure you are running your business as smoothly and as efficiently as possible. Many businesses have been taking on more work than they have capacity for as they are worried what impact another lockdown would have on their business. Of course this is totally understandable, but you have to ensure that when taking on the extra work, your customer service does not falter. Your reputation is what matters the most in business.
People work in different ways and you need to find the right method which works for you. Maybe you like writing lists out and ticking off the tasks as and when you complete them, so you have a sense of accomplishment when striking it off your list or maybe you like using software to give you automated reminders. There’s so much management software to choose from online, and this can be quite daunting. It can also be quite time consuming, finding the right platform that suits you and your business needs. Most of the software platforms available, such as Asana & Monday are offering 30 day free trials so that you can test out the software before committing to a contract. Two Birds Resources can help you to manage your time more effectively. We can help you to improve processes to streamline your workload and we can take on your workload to ease the pressure.
Work/family life balance
It can be so difficult to achieve a healthy work/family life balance. When you have your own business it takes a lot of commitment and you need to invest a lot of time, which means that you don’t always have enough time to spend with loved ones or socialising (although this is of course restricted at present!) But what’s the point of being your ‘own boss’ if you can’t drag yourself away from your computer to spend that precious time with your family? Having the right organisation skills, software and of course people to support your business is key to ensuring that you get that quality time back.
Automation is also being highly utilised. It's great to use automation to reduce the mundane tasks, but you also have to be careful that you don't lose the 'human touch'.
If one good thing has come from COVID it’s the fact that we are all now more aware of the things which matter most in life, and we have been given unprecedented opportunities which may never happen again for us.
Support
COVID has impacted everyone’s lives in one way or another. If you had to take advantage of the Furlough scheme which was made available by the government or had to make redundancies, the workload has more than likely increased for you as you no longer have that added support.
Maybe in this pandemic landscape you are worried to employ someone to help you as you are unsure of the future with a looming potential lockdown hanging over us.
There are options available to you in these situations, you don’t need to do it all alone! Outsourcing your work to a Virtual Assistant can be a great added support to your business. You can use a VA on an adhoc or a monthly basis with no obligation to commit. It can relieve the added pressures and also save you money, with no tax, national insurance and pension contributions to have to pay, and no risk that you may not have enough work coming in from one month to the next to ensure you are covering someone’s salary. One thing we do advise, is to make sure you have a good relationship with your VA as communication is key in getting jobs done correctly and on time, and you need to build that trust with them. At Two Birds Resources we like to get to know our clients, and find that it’s great to have a chat to discuss your business requirements before you make a decision.
If you need some assistance with your time management or your workload please get in touch for a no-obligation, informal discussion.
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