Karen Skidmore's Kick-Ass Blog | CanDoCanBe

Computer crash and no back-up

It’s every home business owner’s nightmare!  A crashed computer with no back-up. 

A horror story perhaps, but it’s a reality check for the majority of us.  I know that I didn’t use to bother with backing up.  It just took too long and it was an admin chore that I often just forgot about.

I was fortunate.  It was someone else’s computer crash that got me in to action and I now have an automatic online back-up every time I shut my computer down.  I use a guy called Dan Adler who set it all up for me over the phone within the hour and a small monthly fee gives me a daily back-up.

It may be that your ISP provides online back-up so check out BT broadband or who ever you use and see how much and how easy it is to set up. 

But whatever, you do, just make sure you BACK UP!!

Free workshops from the Tax Office

About 3 years ago I attended a half day workshop that was run by the HM Revenue & Customs.  It was a brilliant session as the 2 ladies who ran it made the whole act of filling in your own tax return so simple.  Suddenly my self-assessment seemed very easy and for the first time in my life, I was able to complete my own tax return without pestering my husband for help (sad I know, but that was the way it was!)

For the past year or so I have been wanting to find out where and when these workshops are held so I can recommend them to you.  And I found them, at last!

If you live in the Surrey area there are workshops happening in Farnham and Woking on Paying your employees, Becoming self-employed as well as Ltd Company sessions and self-assessment ones too.   For dates and details phone 01483 264423.

For the rest of the country, there is a web address www.hmrc.gov.uk/bst but no dates are listed.  Fill in the form online and see what is offered.  These sessions are well worth attending if tax issues just feel like a big fog!

Creating Time For Your Business

Can you really create extra time to spend on your business?
 
When you run your own business and work for yourself, spending time on your business can be hard to do.  After all, you are so busy marketing yourself and delivering your product or service, that spending time on your business is hard to prioritise.
 
Perhaps you are still working for someone else and you are starting up a new business in the evenings and weekends.  Are there really enough hours in the day to do it all in?
 
Are you really able to increase the number of hours that you have in a day?
 
No, of course not.  Time management is such an awful phrase, isn't it?
 
Of course you can't manage time. Time just keeps ticking away the same way that it has been for millions of years. 
 
What you can manage is yourself.  How you manage yourself in the hours that you have available is what counts.
 
And making sure you spend some of these precious hours working "on" your business and not "in" your business, is critical to your long term success (as well as your personal sanity!)
 
So how do you create the time for your business?
 
Interestingly, several of my coaching clients have been dealing with this same issue over the past few weeks.  And these were some of the strategies that we came up with to help them create the time.
 
Use your diary.  Whether you prefer electronic or good old fashioned paper, your diary can be used for more than just your client appointments and networking meetings.  Why not schedule in a "Meeting with Me" (and never re-schedule!). 

Time commit your deadlines.  Planning this month's marketing is all very well, but if this planning session just doesn't make it to the top of pile of things to do, it is never going to happen.  And all that means is another month of no focus to your marketing.  Ummm.  Set a deadline to projects.  Commit to a time, day and month - and stick to it.

Block out key days in your schedule.  Whether you can work full time on your business or part time, you can't work "in" your business all the time.  The magic formula that works for me is 3/5 working "in" the business, 1/5 on accounts and office admin and 1/5 "on" the business for my business & marketing planning, including activity reports and statistics.

Learn and build your skills.  It may be that it is your confidence and lack of understanding that is stopping you from taking the time to business plan.  I remember finding these 50 page templates that you can download from most high street banks' websites.  All very well, but they were just, so, corporate.  Full of business BS and mission statements.  Did I really need all that when I started out?  No.  A flipcart and pen works for fine for me.  But I took the time out to learn what I needed to do to enable me to work "on" my business. Maybe you should too?

Little and often.  Far better to spend one hour a week thinking, planning and reviewing your business every week.  Leave it until you run out of clients and start panicking about the lack of revenue you are generating, and the business planning process becomes daunting. 

Take off and disappear.  It is amazing how a change of scenery can allow us to be more creative with our business.  Sit and stare, let your mind think without your phone ringing or your inbox bleeping at you.  You may just come back to your business refreshed and renewed.

And finally, stop wilfing.  A great term that I saw in last week's papers.  It stands for "What Was I Looking For?"  A recent survey (don't you just love these surveys!!) showed us that 63% of Scots wilfed.  Click here if you want to read the article.

Add your comments, as always.  What “time management secret” can you share with others?

The Best of Both Worlds

Am I being just a little hypocritical here?  Posting a "how-to" work/life balance article on my blog on a Sunday?

Well, yes and no.  Sunday is family time, most definitely - but there is nothing nicer than having had a day out as a family watching Happy Feet at the cinema, then a mid-afternoon lunch at Wagamamas followed by a snuggle on the sofa and finally me pottering on the PC for an hour or so!

Which is why I thought of Allison Marlowe's article that she kindly gave me the other week.  Allison runs her own coaching practice, Pace of Life Coaching, specialising in helping modern women balance their lives better and she has a lot to say about the subject.  Over to you, Allison.

Virtual Assistants: Business Expense or Business Investment?

Are you ready to start building your team?  Perhaps hiring a PA feels a step too far.  Employing admin staff is not necessary and the paper work involved too big a headache.

So, what about a Virtual Assistant?  Would someone who works from their own home and supports you via the phone and email really be the answer?

This is a bridge that I have crossed recently and it has begun to make some real differences to CanDoCanBe.  And I thought it would be a good idea to invite Alex Greer, CanDoCanBe VA extraordinaire, to share with us all (me included!) how to get the best out of a VA.

Successful home businesses - are you backing up your PC?

How do you run a successful home business with out any electricity?

Imagine, if you will, a day planned in the office.  You are looking forward to a proactive session on the computer.  Perhaps you wanted to do some work on key word searches and how best to optimise your website.  Perhaps you wanted to update your customer database and make sure you were keeping in touch with your best clients.

And then, suddenly - the lights go out.  The computer is off and there is absolutely no electricity.

Do you wear your pants over your tights?

A rather personal question, perhaps - but what I am referring to is whether you are consider yourself a SuperWoman?

For me, I not only run CanDoCanBe as a business, but I am also Mum to 2 young children, responsible for cleaning, washing and ironing, am the decision maker on what meals to cook as well as school runner, weekend social secretary and chief DIYer.  Yes, I do have a husband (and a very fine one too, I may add!!) but as he is working a pretty full week as well and a lot of it spent commuting, it does fall on my shoulders.

But one thing I try not to do is to wear my pants over my tights (except when it is very dark in the winter mornings, I may get a little confused when in a rush).  I don't believe we, as women who run our own businesses and have a dozen or so other responsibilities, need to act like SuperWomen.  If we did, we wouldn't have time to have fun and enjoy ourselves.

So, how can we do it all and still smile?  As my kiddies have just gone back to school, I have had to re-audit my working week.  I have made some committments to myself and would like to share some of the things I do that make it all more bearable. 

Top tips on how to keep the email monster at bay

Who has met the Email Monster?

Email has changed the way we have communicated, hasn't it?  At first it increased our efficiency no end and helped do away with losing letters in the post.  But over the past few years, our efficient communication system has become a Monster.

Our inboxes can be over-run with emails as the Monster feeds and grows daily.  It is easily done.  And especially when you consider an average inbox can receive 100's of emails every day.

So, what can we do about?  How can we stop being reactive and wasting our time on unnecessary emails and focus on what is important to us - being proactive and making our business happen.  Read on for my top tips on how to keep the email monster at bay.