Concentrate…part 3

This week’s article continues our theme of concentration and looks at some of the physical techniques you can use to keep your concentration.

• Get up and move around. If you are like many people, you probably don’t move around enough. Research shows that regularly walking around and stretching helps increase your focus. Depending on your type of work you might find it better to take mini-breaks regularly, for example, 5 minutes every half-hour, or to take breaks between tasks or different activities. For example, I leave my mobile phone on the staircase, so if it rings I have to get up to answer it.
• Breathe. It might sound obvious but most of us do not breathe properly or deeply enough. Make sure your posture is right to allow you to breathe fully. If you can’t do it constantly, then at least make sure when you take your moving around breaks above, you practice some deep breathing. Proper breathing is the key to making sure your brain gets the oxygen it needs to work properly. To help get breath into my lungs (especially when I have spent a lot of time at the computer) I stand with my back against a wall, stretch my hands above my head (keeping my arms against the wall) and breathe. Take 5 deep breaths and I’m sure you will feel a lot better.
• Start your day or take a break at lunchtime, with some exercise. Take a yoga class, go for a swim, run, cycle, walk, or use one of the many exercise apps available. Exercise produces adrenaline and other beneficial chemicals in your body, all of which will help you work and focus more effectively.

Concentrate…part 2

This week we continue to look at ways to improve your concentration. Here are some nutritional tips to keep you energised so that you can focus on what you have to do.

• Drink water! It seems self-evident and everyone says it, but many of us get busy and simply forget. Dehydration can make you feel tired, irritable, slow, or even sick. When your brain doesn’t have enough fluid, it can’t operate at peak performance. So keep a water bottle or jug with you and drink regularly. Try adding a slice of lemon to give it a bit more flavour.
• Eat breakfast – starting your day with a healthy breakfast can help you concentrate throughout the morning. Your mind wanders too easily if you are hungry.
• Have healthy energy-boosting snacks available. Keep snacks at your desk to give yourself a quick energy boost when you feel yourself flagging – almonds, whole-grain crackers, fresh fruit and vegetables are all good choices (unfortunately chocolate is not – enjoyable though it may be!).
• Eat something light but nutritious for lunch – a big, heavy lunch will slow you down, and many people find high gluten foods (like bread and pasta) make them sleepy in the afternoon. Keep your lunch light and healthy and you’ll feel more energised through the afternoon.

Concentrate…

Over the next few weeks we will look at ways to improve your concentration. These are tips collated from a variety of sources, but I hope that putting one or more of these into practice will help you to focus – on whatever you are trying to do.

How many times have you sat at your desk and tried to focus on a task, only to find your mind wandering? Despite your best intentions, you get distracted and just can’t concentrate. We’ve all been in this familiar, frustrating situation, and it can really undermine your performance.

This first article in our series will look at environmental factors that can help you concentrate.

The more comfortable and welcoming your environment is, the easier it is likely to be for you to stay there and focus. Here are some ideas for improving your physical environment:

• Be comfortable – adjust your chair and desk to the right height for you to work comfortably. There are plenty of websites that will help you set up your equipment correctly and give you ideas for effective ways to layout your work area.
• Add some pictures – looking at a natural scene or wildlife can help improve concentration, and can also give your eyes a break from the computer screen (we’ve mentioned before some of the eye exercise apps you can use to help your eyes stay healthy).
• Shut out distractions as much as possible – listening to music can help, especially if it’s instrumental music. Some people find white noise machines useful – this steady background noise can drown out other noise, helping you focus better and ignore distractions.
• Maintain air flow – if you have a window open it for some fresh air. If not have a pot plant on your desk to help purify the air a little.

Efficient meeting scheduling

If you run a business that requires meeting with clients or groups of people, you will know how tricky it can be to manage and organise times that suit everyone.

Don’t spend endless hours emailing, texting or phoning back and forth with everyone to try to coordinate – there are some tools that will help.

Allowing clients to book time with you directly is a great option that lets your clients feel like they matter – they can select a time to suit themselves and put it into your diary directly. I use an app called Timetrade for this. This neat app hooks itself into my Outlook calendar.  Via my website it shows my existing appointments/meetings as busy time (no, it doesn’t show who I’m with, it just shows the time as busy) and gives clients the opportunity to create a meeting with me.

Another handy feature of this app is that I can have different views of my calendar for different websites/businesses.  In my consulting business, clients have the opportunity to set up two hour meetings.  Whereas for my face-to-face training business, clients prefer either morning or afternoon bookings, so I publish different calendar options for each on my websites.

If you need to organise meetings with multiple people, whether for business or socially, Doodle is great. Simply set up as many or as few choices of dates and times as you like, add people to the list and an auto-generated email will invite them to select those times they can attend. You can then choose the option that suits most people and lock it in.

See http://www.timetrade.com and http://doodle.com/en/

Time to keep track of time?

When running your small business it is important to keep track of time.

Tracking time serves several purposes. It can help you at the end of a day/week/month when you reflect on what you’ve actually done with your time. If you charge for your work on a time spent basis, it’s essential to keep records so you can accurately bill your clients.

For those just starting out, tracking your time will help you calculate the cost of doing business.  You can see how much time you need to spend with prospects before they purchase (helping you price your services more easily). You will also see the amount of time you spend doing your business administration (accounts, paying bills, BAS returns and so forth). And knowing the time you spend in marketing/business development activities will help you to judge the value of those activities in context of the results you get from them.

I’ve been using time recording apps for quite some time now – and it is one of the best time management tools I have.  When you see how much time you spend on thinking (procrastinating, if you are truthful), watching TV, shopping and coffee meetings, you will soon see how much time you have to re-purpose on other activities.

There are a number of time recording apps available. I find the easiest way is to have one on my mobile phone as I always have this with me. It’s important that you make sure whichever app you choose, it has the capability to upload/save your information (eg. to another computer, to the cloud, Dropbox) so that you don’t risk losing it. If you’re using it for charging clients you don’t want to be double entering your billable information, so choose an app that will export to a spreadsheet or your accounting system and/or create invoices for you.

Most apps will have a free version which may be fine for personal time-keeping, but if keeping track of billable time you will need to pay for a full version. I have found these apps effective and reasonably priced:

• TimeClock:  http://www.spotlightsix.com
• OfficeTime:  http://www.officetime.net