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Power Up Your Productivity – How to Work Smarter, Not Harder!

3 July 2020 by Vicky

It really doesn’t matter what business sector you work within, whether you are working from the 25th floor of a London high rise

office or whether you work from home (which we imagine is still the case for a large number of UK employees). At some point, there

comes the fear that the only way to balance work, life, success and everything in between is to obtain some form of qualification in professional juggling.

Most of us now have jobs which are as diverse as we are, with many tasks of varying levels requiring completion at any one time. Whilst you are, of course, skilled and proficient at all of these tasks and are no doubt very busy, the real question is are you being as productive as you could be?

Last time we checked, there is no qualification in professional juggling and trust us when we say that absolutely no-one is born with a natural flair for productivity! However, time management and productivity are skills that can be honed and tweaked continuously throughout our personal and professional lives to help us all stay cool, calm and collected when the to-do list seems never-ending.

Here are a few of our personal favourite tips that can really help to refine and finesse the way in which you work.

Leave Space Invaders in the 90s

Not surprisingly, having a dedicated work space that is set up just for you is one of the easiest ways to improve your productivity. Of course, it is nice to work from comfy sofas, snuggly beds and snack laden dining tables but these really aren’t going to help you long term. For all the intelligence we have, there are certain associations that our brains really struggle to unpick. By making your brain constantly try to work out whether it’s time to work or relax, you’re ultimately just slowing yourself down.

Of course you might not have the luxury of an entirely separate room but even just a small desk in the corner of an existing one is better than nothing. There are certainly many different ideas for small and cost savvy work spaces littered throughout the internet. Whatever you choose to do, the workplace you create should make you feel comfortable and happy. Accessorise your space to your tastes and make it somewhere you want to be rather than somewhere you dread. Most importantly of all, keep it tidy! Clutter and mess is just another thing to distract your mind from the task at hand, a quick tidy at the end of each day will keep it fresh and ready for work.

Failing to prepare is preparing to fail

It’s no secret that making notes helps us not only to remember but also keeps our minds clear allowing us to focus on individual tasks. So why try and operate your day ad-hoc with thoughts of tasks and deadlines cluttering your brain? By beginning each day with a clear plan on what tasks you will be undertaking and what time you will be allocating to each, it means you can dedicate 100% of your attention to each one in due course.

There are so many methods and tools for doing this, from simply scheduling your tasks in your email/calendar to full blown task managing apps and software that you simply cannot fail. Planning can be done to cover whatever timeframe you need from one week right the way to one year ahead and thankfully, this isn’t just limited to work items, you can introduce personal tasks into the mix too, allowing you to fully manage that coveted work life balance.

Category is… dressed for success

For any of you that work from home you’ll be familiar with the misconception held by a lot of people that we all work in our pyjamas or slouchy clothes all day and, whilst to them, this is seen as a luxury opportunity we are all too aware of the drawbacks of doing so. Flitting back to that pesky brain association issue, when we wear our comfy relaxing/sleeping clothes, oddly enough our brains tell us that it is time to do just that.

Now, by no means are we saying that you should be donning on full business attire with high heels and a face so full of makeup it would make a drag queen blush, but there is something to be said for wearing something that inspires you. The clothes that we wear have a tremendous effect on the way we feel and in turn the way we feel has a similar sized effect on the way we work. So throw on those jeans that make you feel confident, the top that makes you feel sophisticated, and the jewellery that makes you happy because all of those things will be reflected in the quality of work you produce.

Embrace automation to end procrastination

Ask yourself this…What is my time really worth?

So many of us waste valuable time doing invaluable tasks each day that could be done more quickly or efficiently by automation. For many people there is the fear that either the process will go wrong or that by automating items you are somehow failing in your duties as a business owner. If this is you then we’re sorry to say but you aren’t maximising your time.

From email and social media scheduling to accounting packages and web bots – there are so many tools out there that can reduce the amount of tasks on your daily to-do list vastly. Just one hour of social media each day could potentially have been 5 hours extra work spent on more valuable or profitable ventures. If automated solutions aren’t your cup of tea then you can always look at outsourcing the daily tasks to a virtual assistant in order to free up your mental space and physical time.

 

Of course, here at Pink Spaghetti we know a thing or two about outsourcing and have teams around the UK who can provide your business with the support you need to succeed.

If you want to discuss how Pink Spaghetti can assist you in boosting the productivity of your business then you can visit here to find your local team today.

 

 

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: PA, productivity, virtual PA

4 key time-saving tips for small business owners

17 December 2018 by Vicky

After careful consideration, we’ve come up with what we believe to be the top four ways that small business owners can save themselves time and lighten their workload.

Being a small business owner is hard work. When you are the driving force behind your own success and have few or no employees, it’s easy to find your to-do list is as long as your arm every day.Personal Errand Services

Use these four super effective time-saving tips to work more efficiently and start feeling more focused and less frazzled.

Enlist the help of a PA

Sometimes accepting that you are taking on too much and could do with some help is the first step towards business growth. Figure out which tasks are eating up the most of your time, or an area where you could benefit from the help of a specialist and outsource the task to a virtual personal assistant.

Read Full Article

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Getting things done, organisation tips, PA, personal assistant, Planning, small business

Reflections on being a Pink Spaghetti PA

3 April 2018 by Vicky

Some insight into why Emily O’Neil from Maidstone & Sittingbourne became a Pink Spaghetti franchisee.

emily oneill, Personal Assistant

Emily O’Neill

So it’s nearly 10 weeks since I started my business, and 10 days since I was at the Pink Spaghetti PA Services Annual Conference.

I’ve been doing some reflecting on the last few months and I’ve realised the following:


• I really do *love* being a PA (or VA, or EA, or VPA) and have done forever, but I don’t think I knew how much until I became ‘Virtual’ and self-employed (and yes, that does mean that I actually do love paperwork – odd, I know!)

• How inspiring it was to be part of a Conference with over 30 other franchisees, some who have owned their businesses for over 5 years and some for less time than I have, and how much I learnt from them all in different ways.

Read Full Article

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Emily O'Neill, Maidstone & Sittingbourne, PA, Pink Spaghetti, VA

The Evolution of the PA

4 January 2018 by Vicky

Little Miss OrganisedThe role of the Personal Assistant has changed enormously over the past decade or two.  At the end of the 20th Century, the job titles ‘PA’ and ‘Secretary’ were often used interchangeably, and there was little difference in the public’s perception of the roles.  Now, with advances in technology and a computer on pretty much every desktop, except in specialised areas such as legal and medical, the position of ‘secretary’ has largely disappeared, and gone are the days when a room full of ladies spent their days typing, making tea and answering the telephone.

 

Before looking at how the role of a PA has changed, what has stayed the same?

Last century and now, the PA was and is the right hand man or woman, always there to provide crucial support so the manager or business owner can focus on strategic objectives.  They may still manage the diary and juggle meetings, but rarely now will it be using pencil and paper.  While PAs may in the past have held a small budget, they may now be in charge of much larger sums and conduct negotiations with suppliers.  Rather than arranging the office party, a PA may now be arranging events with hundreds of attendees, or co-ordinating an office move.

Read Full Article

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: PA, personal assistant, VA, Virtual assistant

5 Key things we didn’t know before starting a small business

5 June 2017 by Vicky

1. Outsource
Entrepreneurs often feel they need to be able to do everything on their own, but this can lead to you wasting precious time doing mundane tasks that someone else could do better and faster. Look for ways to automate or outsource repetitive jobs, and you’ll have more time for the important things. You’re also only as good as the team you have behind you. Make sure you have the right people in place to deliver the service you want to deliver.

2. You’ll spend a lot of time running your business
So you’ve started your business because you’re passionate about what you do, but as a business owner you’ll spend the majority of your time on administration, marketing, selling, business planning and answering a whole load of emails. To make any money out of your new business these are things you need to get to grips with, even if admin’s not your first passion.

3. The importance of making friends with the media
However fantastic your product or service, you need to tell people about it if your business is to succeed. Local press can often have space to fill and will welcome newsworthy stories about your new business. Editorial will often seem more credible to the general public than advertising, so make friends with your local media and harness the power of free publicity.

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: organisation tips, organise, organised, outsource, PA, PA Services, personal assistant, productivity, Time Management, Virtual assistant

Small is Beautiful

4 March 2017 by Vicky

So you run your own micro business, congratulations!  You may be surprised to learn that you are in the majority – businesses employing fewer than 10 people make up 95.6% of all UK businesses.

So what’s great about being tiny?  There are myriad advantages to small businesses, both to the business owner and to the customer.  Here are a few of them:

 

For the entrepreneur:

Independence – be honest, who hasn’t ever wanted to be their own boss?  People working for themselves are happier too.

Personal Satisfaction – you’re working in a field you really enjoy, and you have the creative freedom you only dreamed of in the corporate world.

Work/life balance – you can set your own hours, reduce your commute to zero and see as much of your family as you want to!

Learning opportunities – as a cog in the corporate machine you typically only perform a tiny part of the overall function.  As a business owner you have to get involved in the whole process, even when you outsource parts of it to other experts.

Read Full Article

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Efficiency, Getting things done, organisation, outsource, outsourcing, PA, PA Services, personal assistant, Time Management, Virtual assistant

Inspirational Businesswomen in celebration of Be A Millionaire Day 2016

15 May 2016 by Vicky

Friday 20th May 2016 is National ‘Be A Millionaire Day’. At Pink Spaghetti we have several inspirational businesswomen as customers who may well belong to this exclusive club. Millionaires or not though, we think all of our clients are 1 in a million and we thought we would share with you some of their successes.

One of our Pink Spaghetti Franchisees, Laura from Newbury, has the privilege of working with a very special lady who has turned a small venture into a thriving business. Romilla Arber runs Honesty Group in West Berkshire, started just two years ago. Honesty Group has gone from strength to strength in a short space of time and provides a benchmark for all women thinking of making that leap and starting their own company. We spent some time with her recently to understand how she has made it such a success:

Pink Spaghetti Q&A

1. What prompted you to start your business and how/where/when did it start?
I wanted to start a business venture in the food sector that could make a reasonable profit whilst retaining its integrity towards staff, customers and suppliers. I started it in 2014 at the Honesty Cookery School.

2. How many people do you now employ?
We now employ 30 staff across the group.
Logo

3. What has made your business so successful? Could you give us 5 tips?
My 5 key tips are working hard to hire and retain the right staff, making good customer service a priority, training and developing staff, charging competitively, having a strong and clear vision.

Read Full Article

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: administration, delegate, franchise, Millionaire, organisation, outsource, PA, personal assistant, productivity, short of time. guilt. working mother, Time Management, VA, Virtual assistant

Spring Clean Your Mind!

4 April 2016 by Vicky

This guest blog has been written by Suzie Poyser, a counsellor running her own private practice.

After setting up my business last year, I know only too well how easy it can be to be consumed by work, with ever present thoughts about everything I need to do and everything I want to achieve personally and professionally. Personally I have found this totally overwhelming at times and as a therapist and mindfulness practitioner, I am quick to notice when I’m feeling overwhelmed, ensuring that I practice what I preach!
It can be very tempting to miss lunch breaks, start early, work late and even go to bed with work on the mind, but with some of these simple mindfulness techniques you can practice slowing down and calming the mind. In doing this you will reap the rewards, creating space in your mind, which will help with your creativity and productivity.

Starting the day right

When that alarm goes off in the morning it’s amazing how quickly the mind can switch in to ‘doing mode’. How we start the day can have a massive impact on how we feel for the rest of the day. Try taking the focus from your thoughts and onto your breath. Taking a few deep breaths, as you breathe in deeply for the count of five, notice the air filling the lungs and the energy it creates and as you breathe out imagine all the tension leaving your mind and body.

Taking a mindful break

It can be very tempting to work right through without a break, or when we do take a break our mind is still whizzing over the list in our head. By taking mindful breaks you’re really giving your mind the down time it needs. A mindful break means doing something and giving it your full attention. This might be as simple as making a cup of tea or eating your lunch. If you’re eating your lunch leave your desk and mobile phone. Focus solely on eating your lunch, really notice the smell of the food, the texture as you start to chew and be aware of how the food tastes.

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: administration, Getting things done, PA, PA Services, personal assistant, short of time. guilt. working mother, Time Management, Virtual assistant

The Work Life Balance of Being A Mum

4 March 2016 by Vicky

Every member of the Pink Spaghetti team is a mum, every franchisee, every member of staff. We all have very different skills, but there is one thing we are all great at – juggling!

We speak to a lot of people, friends, customers, and time and time again we meet people who think they should be able to do it all, but can’t.  They all have the misguided impression that other people do everything, brilliantly.  What they forget is that people probably think that of them too.

Life was busy before children, and now add in the school and nursery runs, planning, and of course spending time actually enjoying the children, and every other area of our lives gets squeezed!

People simply cannot do everything, we all have to make choices.  Do we sit and play with our children?  Great!  But the cleaning won’t get done.  Home cooked food all of the time?  Yummy!  But that won’t keep the paperwork up to date.

The truth is that there are only so many hours in the day, and we choose how we spend them (and a high percentage of it may be on Facebook!) so we need to look at how we can carry on juggling, that is a fact of life, how do we keep all those balls spinning?

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: outsource, PA, personal assistant, productivity, VA, Virtual assistant

Do You Love Your Business?

12 February 2016 by Vicky

We are fortunate enough to work with many fabulous business owners – entrepreneurs in the true sense of the word. We’re often asked, what makes them stand out, succeed, grow? The answer is simple, they all have a passion, a love for their business, a drive and determination to make it truly great. But is that enough?

Most people go into business because they love what they do – they may be fabulous at fitness, a wonderful wedding organiser or a caring counsellor, but then realise that running a business is not only about what they love – it is about what they don’t love at all.  Bookkeeping, marketing and more, there are lots of tasks not to love when running a business.

The customers we work with carry on doing what they love, and are brilliant at, while handing us the tasks they are not so keen on.  One customer recently Spreadsheet-photoemailed Catherine, our South Manchester franchisee and said, “This is awesome, should have got a PA ages ago, finally going to get some things done that I’ve been wanting to do for ages!”.  People feel relief when they hand things over to us and feel a weight has been lifted once they’ve made the leap and outsourced for the first time.

What about Pink Spaghetti?  We are dreadful at dance classes (two left feet), frightful at floristry (no green fingers here) and would make rubbish restaurateurs (although we’re good at eating!) but we do love a good spreadsheet.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: administration, Efficient, Getting things done, PA, PA Services, personal assistant, short of time. guilt. working mother, Time Management, VA, Virtual assistant

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