Category: Balance

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Managing your interruptions

Interruptions can be a real problem as, in addition to the time they take, they also disturb your train of thought. Here are a few tips for managing some of your interruptions.

Consider whether you need to answer your phone straight away. It may be possible to use your voicemail or even better, an answering service, for a few hours per day. This will allow you to focus on work for a while and then to block all your calls together to get back to people later in the day. As long as you return the calls and don’t forget about them!

If you work alone then you may not wish everybody to have your mobile number. Consider getting a virtual landline that is answered by an answering service. I have used Answer It for this purpose but also for answering calls when all our business lines were in use.

Emails can all be batched together and answered once or twice a day. Batching similar tasks is much more efficient. Many accountants have a shared inbox linked to a practice management system which allows them to delegate emails/tasks. Technology can be your friend.

Remember that people usually send emails when it is convenient for them, they may be working flexibly or they may be in a different timezone. Big corporations often use an autoresponder to say that your query will be answered in say, 5 or even 15 days.

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A mindset for distinction

Today I learned that I had earned a distinction in a singing exam that I took earlier this month. But it almost never happened.

Mindset fail: I spent too long believing that I couldn’t sing.

After failing to get into my school choir I spent most of my life believing that I couldn’t sing. A few years ago I took a few vocal coaching lessons with my daughter’s singing teacher to help strengthen my voice as I was doing more professional speaking.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could sing better than I thought and I went on to get a merit for my grade 3 Musical Theatre just before lockdown.

With lessons and exams cancelled through lockdowns etc it has taken a while to get around to my grade 4. My exam was in the morning (I’m not a morning person) but I didn’t want to postpone any longer. My daughter also needed to get her grade 7 out of the way so that she can squeeze in her grade 8 and diploma before she heads off to university.

The first two songs sent okay although I could hear that my voice was a bit husky due to hay fever but I carried on as best I could.

Mindset fail: I let one small problem take over my mind

Then we came to the third and final song which I usually sang a whole tone lower than the official score. It’s easy to turn a knob to transpose on an electronic piano but this was a new venue and there was only a grand piano! I had a panicked talk with my accompanist and asked what key I should sing in. There was no choice but to go for the original key. I knew I could only just make the top notes which is why we’d chosen to sing it lower so that I could belt them out with confidence.

I was so fearful that, part way in, I had a complete mind blank and forgot the words! It’s not like when I speak on stage where nobody knows if I’ve diverged from my script; the examiner had the lyrics and score in front of him. I carried on singing some made up words and may have got away with it but then I couldn’t even do that so I had to stop to ask my accompanist for a prompt. I knew I’d blown it and I wanted to leave the room so I could have a comforting cry.

I was cross with myself for letting my terrified thoughts force me into such a simple mistake. But at least I had nothing to lose so I carried on.

Mindset success: I stopped being scared

Just before the belt with the terrifying high notes I remembered my teacher’s instruction to ‘relax’ and her tips on using less breath.

I didn’t just hit the notes, dear reader, I hit them well!

Overall I lost a few marks for the memory lapse but I handled it professionally and didn’t allow it to affect the rest of the performance.

But how many times do we fail just because we’re too scared to try?

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Like wildlife on a safari

I love what I do but I also like to spend quiet time away from my business. This is the life part of my work-life balance. Now that my kids are older it provides time for enjoyment and also for rest so that I am refreshed when I get back into work.

We can all benefit from some quiet time in our lives.

I was fortunate to spend my honeymoon on safari in Kenya. As we waited quietly by a waterhole the wildlife drifted into view and we were lucky to see all of the ‘big five’ animals: lions, leopards, elephants, rhinoceroses, and African buffalo as well as some gentler giraffes and zebra.

At home, when I take time to wait quietly or, more normally for me, to walk or run gently, I am rewarded by ideas.

How often do you get away from your desk to get fresh ideas?

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One does not simply walk into Mordor

This is Gandalf’s response in Tolkien’s ring trilogy when he is asked the way to the evil land of Mordor.

As with any challenge Gandalf has three things

  1. A map
  2. A plan
  3. A fellowship/support team

Do you know where your business is going? How will you get there? What and who will you need to overcome obstacles along the way?

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One touch is enough

No, I’m not talking about sexual harassment but about your admin processes. How often do you open an email or look at a task more than once? How many of those would take less than 2 minutes to complete?

Wherever possible I try to handle small tasks just once.

When I receive an invoice or receipt I scan/forward/upload it to Xero immediately so that my bookkeeping is taken care of with no bother. As we have reasonable cashflow I also make payment immediately so that I don’t need to look at the invoice again, this also ties in with my value of looking after small businesses and their owners by paying promptly.

The same goes for emails. Anything that will take less than 2 minutes is done immediately eg a quick answer or forwarding to the right person to complete the task or creating a task to complete later

How do you minimise your admin?

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Money, money, money

Most small businesses fail because they run out of cash. It caught out a lot of people who couldn’t cope while they waited for covid funding came through. Hopefully we’ll never have to manage a global crisis of that magnitude again but there are many things that might go wrong for individuals. I’ll talk about business continuity planning separately as I just want to consider your bank balance today.

I recommend reading the first half of Profit First by Mike Michalowicz and I think I’ve written about it before. There are some good principles and the remaining chapters just go into more detail

I have a Starling account which comes with savings spaces and I do monthly management accounts on Xero so I try to ensure that I have the following saved:

  • VAT per Xero
  • Corporation Tax per Xero management accounts (or you can save 19% of your profit)
  • 3 months of overheads in case of illness or crisis which can also be used to buffer any large or unexpected bills
  • Dividends to pay myself later in the year
  • Spare cash to pay into my pension later in the year to minimise my tax

I usually pay my suppliers immediately because, as a small business, it reduces my admin to only deal with each transaction once. You should ensure that you have enough funds to pay your suppliers on or before the due date. A business is insolvent if it can not pay its debts on time.

I also use a Starling account for my personal finances and I use my savings spaces for:

  • 3 months of household costs in case of illness or crisis which buys me enough time to sort out alternatives
  • Savings to replace my car every three years
  • Savings for holidays each year and fun experiences such as watching musicals with my kids
  • Income tax due on my dividends and other income not on PAYE.

It’s taken a long time to build up this financial security so don’t worry if you’re not there yet but, if you’d like a hand with making your business run more profitably, please give me a shout.

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Why you need to increase your prices

A lot of business owners avoid increasing their prices, either because they’re worried about losing clients or because they don’t know how to go about it. Even when they know that they need to increase their prices it is too easy to procrastinate (I’m the queen of procrastination, I have all the excuses)

I’ll cover the ‘how’ in separate tips but today I want to talk about why.

We all started our business for a reason which broadly come into one of three areas:
• Profitability
• Build something valuable to sell at retirement
• Better work – life balance

All of these will benefit from having better prices allowing you to earn more money, increase the value of your business, or to earn more in limited time.

But the real benefit to our clients is that we will have time to provide a quality service. To do things properly and not cut corners. And to run a business that will still be around to help them in future years.

When we provide a quality service our clients benefit, they stay with us, and they refer other people to us. It’s a virtuous circle because everybody wins.

To create the business you want you need to charge the right prices.

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Have you got the right priorities?

I’m the first person to remind you that you need to work ON your business as well as IN it and I will only take on coaching clients who agree to commit half a day per week to working on their business, but I’m a business owner too and I know how hard that can be to make the time.

We’re always torn between things that earn money now and things that will earn money later such as marketing and business improvements. Not to mention that we’d like to spend some time on the things we enjoy.

I’ve written before about my default diary which includes time for marketing and my own business and personal development. I then allocate particular tasks to those slots. But if you truly want to improve your business then you need to learn to delegate and think systematically.

I love lazy marketing when I use one piece of content in different ways. I also know that my strength is in writing/recording the content and then my wonderful VA tidies it up and distributes it across multiple channels. Whether you’re reading this in our Top Tips e-news or a blog or on social media then she is the one who has put it there (with the help of some software).

My job is to prioritise getting the content out each and every week. When I tried to do the whole job myself it took four times as long so I only got around to it about once a month, maybe less.

Look at everything you do, maybe keep a rough timesheet for a week or month, then go through the list with a highlighter to see what could be delegated to the right person. Then find that right person.

Your priority should be the things that only YOU can do.

If you’re an accountant, you can find somebody else to do the accounts themselves and some of the marketing (I write a monthly content pack for accountants who don’t want to do it themselves) so that you can focus on being the face of your business. If you’d rather be the one doing the accounts, then find somebody else to manage your business. Don’t think that you have to be the MD just because you’re the majority shareholder.

To create the business you want you need to be clear on your priorities.

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Do you set boundaries?

I work with a lot of people who are overwhelmed in their business as they have bitten off more than they can chew. When we start working together it soon becomes clear that they need to improve how they set boundaries.

Here are a few ideas I often use:


• Practise saying “no” in front of a mirror. It makes it easier to say to a real person.
• Practise saying “no” without feeling the need to offer an explanation.
• Practise saying “no” with a polite smile
• Be clear on what you are willing to do for your clients. Your engagement letter should act as a reminder to you as well as to them of what you are contracted to do.
• When a client asks for something extra tell them “yes we’d love to help you with that and it will cost £X” (fixed fee or per hour)
• Do not discount your fees. You are not a charity. If people are struggling then reduce the scope so they do more for themselves eg we provide basic bookkeeping training videos if the owner is capable of doing this themselves
• Do not provide extended credit. You are not a bank.
• Set appointments in your diary to make time to do something for yourself
• Ring up an old friend and arrange to meet for lunch or an enjoyable activity. It will get you out of the office. If you’d prefer to be alone then book a facial or a massage or plan a bike ride with a nice cake stop.
• Set an alarm for when you intend to finish your working day and then leave your laptop on your desk when you close your office door
• Stop reading this and practise saying “no”

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How welcoming is your business?

I’m on holiday and the town I’m staying in has all sorts of churches in the centre. But the thing that strikes me is how uninviting some of them are. I’m sure these churches would probably say that they want to welcome and encourage outsiders to come inside but that’s not the message they’re putting across.

One has a sign ‘Consecrated ground – no dogs’ which is short and to the point. Could this have been worded in a gentler way? And how many people know what consecrated means anyway?

One has a sign ‘John 3:16’ which is just a mystery to everybody apart from the initiated. Could this have been written in plain English without code or jargon?

As an accountant we’re often guilty of making people feel excluded through our use of jargon and poor communication skills. Have a look at your own business with the eyes of an outsider and see how you could be more inclusive and welcome in people who want to know more.

And don’t forget to book your holiday if you haven’t yet done so.

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