Lots of people have a business idea or a can offer a service that would be of interest to people. The main problem that many people face is that they do not know how to go about turning that idea/service into a reality and start selling it to other people/businesses.

This short 2 minute video from YouTube (not by myself) gives some insight into what is required to open a small business.

If you are thinking of opening your own small business and are unsure about what to do next, please contact me and I can offer you some advice about the next steps you will need to take.

Most of us at some point in our working lives will have taken a short break from work and come back to hundreds of emails, we then check through these emails and get behind on our work. I’ve found a few techniques that really help when trying to balance a heavy workload with a heavy inbox.

Scheduling

Set aside some time during the day just to check your emails. I usually do 15 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes at dinner time and then a quick check before I finish for the day. I find that this is far more productive than checking every single time and email arrives.

Don’t respond until you have to

If you have been cc’d in on an email that is going back-and-forth a lot, just wait until the first few responses have been made before replying. One of your questions/points may be made by someone else, meaning that you don’t need to do anything. If one of the questions in the email is directed at you, reply during your scheduled time.

Time Zones

If you’ve been sent an email from someone at the other side of the world, the chances are that they won’t be at their PC when you are at yours. Save replying to this email until one of your later scheduled times.

Auto responders

If you are going away for a few days, make sure enable your out-of-office message, along with a note to say when you are returning. Hopefully people will take notice and not send a lot of emails for you to go through when you get back.

Prioritise

Create folders within your email for different priority levels. If you receive an email about a night out in a month’s time, that’s fairly low priority – file it away until you have more spare time to go though it. Leave the very high priority e-mails on your home-screen so you can deal with them during a scheduled time.

Un-Subscribe

Most of us will get newsletters and other circulars that come through to us regularly. If they are not of mega importance unsubscribe from them and bookmark the relevant website in your browser to check when you are online.

How do you keep on top of the email overload?