by Angela Taffs | Jul 19, 2016 | Personal and Lifestyle
Money or memories. Which is more important to you?
Today, we rely more and more on social media. We become a social recluse and base our success and popularity by how many followers we have and how many people we have on our mailing lists.
We while away hour after hour sat staring at a screen in a virtual world, feeling ecstatic when someone comments on one of our posts only to return to a feeling of despondency when someone then unsubscribes from our mailing list.
We spend so much time trying to be proactive in these virtual communities that we stand a very real and present danger of alienating ourselves from the real world. Scary, but true!
While we become a social recluse, we stop seeing what is going on around us. We stop being present with our friends and family. Even if we do tear ourselves away from our laptop to go for coffee with a friend, we don’t really hear what they are saying as we are so busy reacting to the ping of a notification on our mobiles just in case we miss something.
Well STOP!!
Life is for living. Yes, you may want to build a business through online marketing but for goodness sake, don’t miss out on the real life you have here and now. By the time your business is at the level you want it to be, you may well have lost what is truly priceless in your life – your health, your friends and your family.
Learn to switch off and make memories, not just money
From today, promise yourself to disconnect for at least an hour a day. Go meet a friend for coffee with your mobile turned off. Go visit a family member or give them a call and chat without interruption. See how much better you feel and how much more refreshed you are.
And once you have got the habit of disconnecting for an hour, try a little longer. Go for a whole evening once per week and if you can bear it, do a whole day at the weekend.
Your business will not suffer. If it is so fragile that it is in danger of collapse from not being present for an hour or so, you have much bigger problems to worry about. You are doing something seriously wrong!
Promise me you will take time out to disconnect. Stop being a social recluse and go take part in the real world once again. Go live life. Go build memories. Don’t wait until it is too late.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments box below.
Angie x
by Angela Taffs | Nov 23, 2015 | Personal and Lifestyle
When was the last time you decided to ask for help?
Why is it that as women we struggle on trying to juggle everything on our own? Now, I am not knocking the men out there but they seem to be much better than women at making the decision to ask for help.
Women continue to try to balance looking after the home, the family including children and elderly parents, our own business and everything else that comes along our path in our day to day lives.
Why don’t we ask for help?
When running a business we are advised not to try to do everything ourselves for fear of burn out and to seek support so is it not time we do the same in our personal lives also?
I have personally been through a particularly busy spell. I have been working 12 hour days providing one to one support to clients including research and report writing time. Outside of these hours I also run my online business support service through The Small Business Kit. I continue to run the home making sure there is a hot nutritious meal on the table each evening. I try to keep the house clean and tidy and everyone’s laundry up to date.
And I struggle!!!
To top it off, this past week my elderly mother was taken poorly and I had the added burden of trying to look after her. And to be honest, I thought I was going to go pop!
My sleep got disrupted and during the day I regularly felt like I was on the verge of a panic attack. So what did I do? I took stock of what I could and couldn’t do and decided that housework was one chore too many. And I booked a cleaner.
The relief of asking of asking for help can be immense
The relief was immense. Just having that pressure of such a time-consuming chore taken off me was incredible. At first I wondered if I could afford to have someone come in and do something that I felt I should be doing myself. But then I decided I couldn’t afford not to. If I didn’t get help somewhere I was going to run myself into an early grave.
I also looked at my business and decided I could no longer afford to keep trying to do everything myself. Due to exhaustion my focus was being lost and I was not promoting The Small Business Kit effectively and getting it out there to help those women that I so desperately wanted to. So I have also employed a coach of my own to help me refocus and drive this side of my business forward (something that I do for others but just couldn’t seem to do for myself – can’t see the wood for the trees syndrome!)
Even Super Woman needs to hang up her cape sometimes
So don’t feel guilty and feel you have to do everything yourself. Long gone are the days of Super Woman. Even Super Woman has times when she needs to hang up her cape and get someone else to pick up the pieces to avoid burnout. Be realistic about what you can physically and emotionally keep up with and don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it.
If you ever feel like you just want a simple chat, I am more than happy to be there for you. Don’t ever feel alone. Get in touch and ask for help.
by Angela Taffs | Dec 28, 2014 | Personal and Lifestyle
How to free up more time at home with time management tips
Using some simple time management tips will add 5 minutes here, 10 minutes there and help you discover the proper utilization of your time that you can never have imagined.
Time management is essential when running a business from home.
Top Tips
Prepare the night before
- Make use of your time preparing lunches, backpacks etc. the night before. Get things ready– documents, car parking change, shopping lists before ending the day out. In many ways, clutter costs much! It drains you of your time and energy. Organize things by putting keys, handbag and other items at the same spot.
Time management tips for the kids
- Have kids’ backpacks hang at a designated spot and encourage them into the habit of doing homework immediately after school and loading their bags for the next day before they go to sleep.
Create a routine
- Create a daily routine to streamline your day. Don’t waste time pondering over pointless things or it will end up becoming a habit. Overcome procrastination by identifying that you are beginning to delay important tasks for unnecessary ones over and over again. Determine these time wasters- the TV, the chitchat, or spending too much time checking on emails or social networking sites.
Create a list
- Have a list of tasks that need doing around the house with a note of how long they take to do. Keep this list handy so that when you find you have 5 or 10 minutes spare, you can scan the list for the smaller tasks and tackle them quickly. You will be amazed how much you can get done in a commercial break on the television. Use this time to quickly wipe over the bathroom, empty waste paper bins or dust a room. Don’t just stand by the kettle waiting for it to boil if making a cup of tea. Use these couple of minutes to clean the inside of the microwave.
Work with your energy levels
- Maximize the time when you are at the highest energy level. Learn to multi-task at this time. But do not let your downtime pass you by. Instead, take time to relax. All work and no play will surely makes you very dull! Your time and energy is priceless and you need to be firm in setting limits.
Delegate
- No one person can do everything so let older kids help you with simple things like preparing lunch boxes, emptying the dishwasher or starting a load of wash. Delegation is also important for proper time management, which can play an important role in moulding your kids. Keep a chart where they can gain stars for the tasks they help you complete. These stars can then be exchanged for rewards when you deem they have accumulated enough.
Finally, remember that everything need not be done perfectly. We are, after all, humans and our homes should be just that, a home, not a show room.
So try following these simple time management tips at home to help you you waste less time and energy and feel less stressed or even no stress at all!
