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Business Clinic


MARKETING


THE GUILD OF MASTER CRAFTSMEN provides the public with skilled, local tradesmen you can trust.


If you see the Guild emblem you can be sure that you will be working with a trusted tradesman who is highly skilled, reliable and accountable.


01273 478449 | theguild@gmcgroup.com


Time-management for home working


FOR many people who run a small business, time-management for home working is the most financially viable option. But how do you optimise productivity while maintaining a healthy work/life balance? Our tips may just help.


1 - Set a routine… and stick to it If you don’t have to reach the office by 9am, it may be tempting to be flexible about your start time. Before you know it, breakfast slides into just one more coffee, then another, and it’s suddenly 11am. Inputting deadlines and commitments into an organiser like Google Calendar – or even keeping it old-school and writing a ‘to-do’ list the night before – can help you keep on track. Humans are creatures of habit, so by sticking to a schedule, you will be more alert and focused while taking care of your mental health, too. It’s also an idea to overestimate the time you assign to each task because they will generally take longer than your initial estimate. However, a perk of working at home is that you can identify


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when you are at your most productive. So, if you are an early riser, you could aim to get three hours of work under your belt even before 9am.


2 - Dress for success While the occasional day spent in your comfy joggers and sweatshirt won’t cause your business to derail, wearing smarter clothes will make you feel more business-like. And a 2015 study in the Social Psychological and Personality Science journal backs this up. It measured subjects’ performance on a series of five cognitive tests when dressed in both formal and casual clothing. Abstract thinking – which is associated with creativity and long-term strategising – increased when formal clothing was worn. It’s thought that what we wear impacts how our brain views everything from objects, people, events… and of course, work.


3 - Have a dedicated workspace This will help flick the switch in your brain


from leisure to work mode and will also set boundaries with other family members. If you’re working at the kitchen table or on the sofa, for example, you’re more liable to be easily distracted than if you’re in a room with the door firmly closed. There are also plenty of inspiring solutions available for carving out an office zone in the most minimalist of spaces, so you can maximise comfort, too.


4 - Clamp down on social media In a 2018 survey conducted by sound solutions company Jabra, a third of the business professionals who took part claimed that they achieved more when they worked from home. But with many studies showing that during a typical working day, we can lose around two hours looking at skateboarding cats/messaging friends/ researching next year’s holiday on the internet, it’s important to be strict with your own usage if you’re going to fit into the group above. Easy ways to do this include muting notifications for specific periods and allocating time slots to check your

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