Remaining cheerful when working from home When I decided to use my skills in a self-employed capacity, I had time to think about how it would work and to organise the logistics. Given the recent work from home recommendations put in place by the Government, this week has seen many people thrust into a completely new way of working. To ease the transition a little and help you stay on top of things, here [...]

Plan for a fantastic New Financial Year For most people, New Year starts on the 1st January. This is the time to review the previous year, to plan and set SMART goals for the next twelve months. Business owners, freelancers and anyone self-employed in any other capacity are greedy – we have two New Year dates! For businesses the beginning of a new financial year, April 6th each year offers an additional chance to [...]

Top tips for getting organised in 2020 It’s hard to believe that we have not only come to the end of 2019, but that we are now breaking in a new decade. For me, 2019 was a great year and business-wise, it was phenomenal. This Business Owl has been kept very busy providing virtual assistance to a wide variety of businesses and individuals! I help with all sorts of business tasks and offer support [...]

Love Your Deadlines Have a look around social media and you are unlikely to see anything positive about impending deadlines. There are some very cleverly produced memes around - screaming and crying your way through the last few days of a project, desperate to meet a fast-approaching deadline. While these make great Instagram fodder, they don’t really paint an accurate picture of the benefits of having an end date. No, really! Deadlines are brilliant! [...]

Productivity Tools for Prolific Jugglers As a Virtual Assistant, I am responsible for supporting numerous businesses and individuals at any one time. Some may hear this and picture me wildly juggling diaries and paperwork, a mobile phone and various other items with a panicked look on my face. Seeing as I’m a terrible juggler, I tend to avoid these types of scenarios. Instead, I employ numerous tools, tricks and a healthy dose of time [...]

Debunking VA Myths Do you have a fuzzy perception of what a Virtual Assistant does? Have you heard wild rumours or contradictory information about the pros and cons of working with a professional VA? Debunking VA myths is something I find myself doing regularly. Sometimes people simply don’t know what a VA is or what a Virtual Assistant does. I meet others who have “heard” about working with a VA from someone who doesn’t [...]

Starship Captains need Virtual Assistance Do you dream of having more time to spend 'on' your business rather than 'in' it? But does the reality of delegating make you break out in a cold sweat? If so, this blog post might strike a chord with you. Star Trek and Business Parallels To illustrate my point, I’ll use Star Trek as an example. If you’re not a Trekkie fan, bear with me. I want to [...]

Wise WordPress Websites - Reducing your website angst! Do themes and widgets raise your blood pressure? Does the mention of plugins, updates and organising hosting make you want to abandon the internet altogether? You certainly aren’t the only one! Once upon a time I felt much the same, however being as determined as I am, I spent a lot of time conquering the beast that is WordPress and nowadays we get on just fine. [...]

To proofread or not to proofread – that is the question! Only the bard could get away with a Comedy of Errors, but the risks associated with drafting errors can be huge for any business, in particular the legal profession. Travelers Professional Risks Limited recently stated that over the last six years, drafting errors have caused around one claim in every eight. Interestingly, although all areas of legal practice are affected, the bulk of claims [...]