December's Special Offer - 20% off

What would you like to achieve next year?  How much of a difference would it make if you could double or even triple your income?

There's a Special Offer in December's Newsletter which ends on the 31st December.  Take advantage of 20% off either the four session Kick Start or the ten session Get Into Action Coaching programme.  There are only a few spaces left in January.

If you want a great start to 2011, get in touch.  Send me an email and get booked in before the end of the year.

Wishing you a very Happy Christmas.

December's Newsletter: Expect The Unexpected

I often hear from people that they can't manage their time because they have to respond to whatever the clients or customers need or demand.

Some people have the kind of job where they have to respond quickly to a client's needs. They're never quite sure what they're going to be doing from day to day.

While it might be more difficult to plan or have a regular structure you can still manage the work you have and create systems and flexibility around it to allow for the unexpected ...

You can read the rest of the article in this month's newsletter, just register on my website or click here. Free tips, advice, information and news on how to improve your time management for your business and personal life direct to your inbox.

M.A.D. What Have You Achieved This Year?

Around now is a good time to take a look back at what you’ve achieved over the course of the year and what you’ve learned from your experiences – good and bad.  Although it can be hard to deal with at the time – there’s no such thing as failure, merely an opportunity to learn from our mistakes.

Have a look at what you’ve learnt this year.  How close did you get to meeting or exceeding your goals? What unexpected challenges presented themselves, what great opportunities did you take advantage of?

Give yourselves a pat on the back for what you’ve achieved, no matter how big or small. It doesn’t matter what anyone else has achieved – they’re not you.  It’s good to have something to aim for and to aim high but don’t beat yourself up if you’ve fallen short. Life happens, unexpected things can knock us for six. Perhaps with a little more support, knowledge or guidance you could have done more but what you’ve done is good enough.

Use the knowledge to make any necessary changes and put plans in place for 2011.

Have a great holiday – wherever you are and whoever you’re with.

Tips To Help You Survive The Festive Season

Tips To Survive The Festive Season - Image Dazzie D  We all know what it's like at Christmas.  With only two weeks to go before the big day here's how to stay sane over the Christmas period.

Plan ahead of time and write it all down.  What can be done now, what needs to be done later?   Stock up the store cupboard and freezer, so you have something for when unexpected visitors turn up or people stay for longer than expected.

What presents do you need to buy – make a list and stick to it.  Ask for suggestions –  buy something people actually want – rather than another unwanted gift ending up in a charity shop or the back of a cupboard.  Don’t leave it to the last minute ‘Christmas Eve panic buying’.  Make lists throughout the year for present ideas and why not shop for presents and cards in the January sales.

Prioritise tasks – you can’t do everything, so make sure the important things get done.  Don’t aim for perfection – Christmas is about being with family and friends.  All the added extras add to the atmosphere (and the expense) but aren’t essential to the enjoyment.  Enough is good enough.

Blitz tasks by setting a time limit of 15-20 minutes and then move on to the next thing.  Great to stop you getting distracted or focusing for too long on one thing when there’s a lot to get done.  You can always come back to it later if there’s still more to do but it gets things moving.

Don’t try to do everything yourself – ask for help.  Share out some of the tasks with the family.  Children enjoy helping out and if you’ve got family and friends coming over, ask for a little help – either preparing, helping out in the kitchen or providing a contribution to the meal.

Most importantly - make sure you take time out to relax in the build up to the festive season, so you’re not so worn out or stressed that you don’t enjoy all the effort you've put in.

Related articles

• How I outsourced Christmas (telegraph.co.uk)

M.A.D. Tips For A Greener Christmas

Tips For A Greener Christmas Image via WikipediaAs we enter a few weeks of mass consumerism and over indulgence, here are a few tips to green up your Christmas and save you money.

Shopping - buy presents from charities or fair-trade sources and where possible don't buy over-packaged goods. Think about what you're buying and why - don't buy just for the sake of it. There are loads of eco-friendly ideas for Christmas - wind-up torches, something for the garden. There's a wide range of 'green' gifts - from adopting an endangered animal to 'buying' a sheep for an African community to supporting your local wildlife charity.

Christmas Lights - switch them off when you go out and don't have them on all the time. Use energy efficient bulbs in the rest of the house to at least offset some of the energy used. One low energy bulb will save as much energy in the coming year as 30 strings of fairy lights over 12 days. LED lights are brighter and use a lot less energy than traditional bulbs.

Wrapping paper - most of this can't be recycled as it contains little actual paper and too much foil and plastic with added sticky tape and labels. Save as much as you can for re-use next year. Use ribbons and string to tie up packages.

Cards - save money and resources by sending electronic cards to colleagues and give the money saved to charity. Recycle cards to local charities or cut up into gift tags for next year.

Festive spirit - recycle all those bottles in the nearest bottle bank or in your kerbside collections.

Trees - if you have a real tree - make sure it's from a local, sustainable source. Thousands of Christmas trees and grown, cut and dumped each year. Most councils will take trees for recycling after Christmas so they can be composted or chipped for local parks and gardens. Buy a rooted one and plant it out in the garden - if you're lucky you can re-use it next year.

Decorations - deck the halls with boughs of holly - well at least see what you can harvest from your garden to decorate the house - holly, ivy, berries and evergreen plants provide a more natural display and can be composted at the end of the festive season.

Christmas Dinner - buy locally at your farmers market and steer clear of intensively produced food which stresses not only the animals but the environment. Farmers markets can be cheaper than supermarkets, have a wide range of seasonal produce, reduces the food miles and tastes far better.

Check out some of the other energy saving tips that apply year-round and not just at Christmas.

Snow Chaos - Working From Home

There are days like this when those of us who work from home breath a sigh of relief and carry on working as normal while others struggle through the snow to get to work.

Commuter chaos as people try to get to and from work by bus, train or car.  Thousands stranded on broken trains, blocked roads, taking hours to get back home or being forced to make alternate arrangements.  With some schools closing parents are forced to take the day off to look after their children.

Should more of us work from home?  Should employers allow their employees to work from home rather than waste their time struggling in to work only to go home a couple of  hours later.  How many hours have been wasted in their attempts to get to work.

Home working doesn't suit everyone and not every job is suitable for home working.  Employers are afraid that their employees won't really be working and will skive off, watching day-time TV or not actually working.

Well, there's enough evidence that even when they're in an office - the chances are that a percentage will be ;skiving off'  anyway - internet, social media, email are all great distractions.  It's also likely that of the 8 hours employees spend at work only 60% of that time is being used productively.  Away from the distractions and interruptions of their usual office environment - they're likely to be MORE productive.  It's all about trust.

So what's more productive - having employees spend half their day getting to and from work or actually spending a productive day working at home with the ability to work flexibly and fit the work to suit their hours?

Related articles

• 'Bosses need to trust employees' (bbc.co.uk)
• Snow stopped play? [Annabel Kaye] (ecademy.com)