Data Supplies Blog

Is It Inefficient For You To Do Your Own Admin?

When you run your own business, we know that there are so many things to worry about. Marketing, admin, communications, finances, legalities... and that's before you've even considered doing what it is that your business actually does. 

Often, business owners spend a great amount of time doing these more administrative tasks - meaning that they have significantly less time left to do whatever it is that they do best. Whether you're an illustrator, a photographer, a recruiter or a consultant - your main skills miss out in favour of the time you have to spend on your admin.

There is a problem with this. Spending time doing things other than your specialist skill can be incredibly inefficient. Why? Because the hours you spend sifitng through emails, or making appointments, or answering the phone are hours when you can't earn money for doing what you do. 

Ask yourself how much your hourly rate is. Then, ask yourself how many hours per month you spend doing administrative tasks and work out how much money you could make from doing your specialist skill during that time. Once you've come up with this figure, you'll likely find that it is significantly larger than the cost to employ a virtual assistant like us to do the administrative work. 

Using a VA to do your administrative work frees up more time for you to do what you best, and make money from it.

Planning for The New Year

Welcome to 2012. Here at Data Supplies and Your Reception Desk we hope you've had a restful holiday and saw in the new year well.

For many people, this time of year is the time for making resolutions. Whether it's to get fit or to save money, millions of people are resolving to be a little bit better personally in 2012. We think that businesses should be doing the same thing. This is the perfect time for business owners to look back at 2011 and the successes and problems that came with it. Doing this is vital when it comes to making plans for the new year. Which direction will you be pushing your business in? How will you seek to grow and increase sales? How will you overcome last year's problems?

A lot of success in business is down to good planning. The first few weeks in January can often be a quiet time; meaning that it's perfect for taking quiet time out to do this planning. We recommend taking out your business plan and reworking it so it can act as a guide for you in the coming twelve months. Be honest and realistic about what you want to achieve and why you haven't yet been able to do it. Think carefully about the services and people you could seek out that might be able to help you. 

How will you be planning for 2012?

 

Our Best Productivity Advice

For the past twenty months we've blogged here twice a week, every week. As a result of this, we've built a really valuable resource. If you're looking for advice or support on dictation, transcription, VA, phone answering or productivity - we just might have something on the subject here!

Recently we collated some of our best advice posts on the subject of dictation. In this post we've done the same with our advice on productivity. We think this is a great way for you to get the best out of the advice we've shared here - whether you're a regular reader or a first time visitor. 

Don't know where to start? How about slowly building efficient processes into your working day.

How do you manage your emails? Some productive tips here.

Also on the subject of emails, do you use the inbox zero technique?

We think that it can be important to 'switch off' communication channels to get important stuff done.

Want to know a great way to do this? Here's a 'how to' on diverting your phones.

If you need a little support in becoming more productive, we can help you. Here's how.

As always, if there is a particular subject you would ike us to share our thoughts on, please do let us know. Feel free to leave a comment below, tweet us or post on our Facebook page. 

The Inbox Zero Technique

Email productivity techniques are something that interest us greatly. Though we think email is wonderful - and vital for business communications - we are only too aware of the distraction it can be. An inbox that pings every few minutes with a new item can be difficult to ignore, but engaging with it each time can be a severe drain on your productivity levels. We've shared some more general email tips before, and we've even blogged about the full email management service we provide, but today we wanted to look at a very popular technique. 

 'Inbox Zero' is a technique adopted by minimalists and highly organised people alike. The basic idea of it is pretty simple; aim to have nothing in your inbox. This doesn't imply that you should delete all emails as they come in (as this would be counter-productive we're sure!) Instead, it means that you should set up a selection of folders relevant to your workload. Each email should either be dealt with straight away and/or filed away in one of these folders for future action or for reference. 

 The process works much better if you only open your email inbox at specified periods. Once an hour or every couple of hours for example, set aside ten minutes to open your inbox and deal with the items that are in there. As mentioned above, either respond to them straight away and put them in a 'dealt with' folder or move them into a relevant folder for action later in the day or later in the week. 

 The idea of inbox zero is that you don't feel stressed by all the work you have still to do. If something is sitting waiting in your inbox, it implies that immediate action is needed. If you've moved it into a folder, however, and noted the item to be dealt with later on a to do list - there is less immediate pressure. 

Do you use the Inbox Zero technique? We'd be interested to hear about how it works for you.

 

Building Efficient Processes into Your Working Day

Here at Your Reception Desk we think that producing good work requires efficient working processes. Building a strong working routines allows you to integrate productive strategies into your work. These help you get the best out of your working day, and help you to feel more satisfied with your achievements. 

Becoming more efficient and productive at work is a process that can start small. Simply by introducing one or two little habits into your day – we think that you can greatly increase your efficiency.

Need some ideas? Take a look at these. 

Tidy your desk. There's an old adage that a tidy desk equals a tidy mind, and we think there's some truth in it. End each day by taking ten minutes to clear the debris of the day from your desk. Put away coffee mugs and stationary. Sort any papers that are left on your desk – and by this we don't just mean put them all into an invoice. Shred any that are no longer needed, file those that need to be kept and place any that still need to be actioned into an inbox to be dealt with asap. Spending these ten minutes at the end of the day will mean that the next morning you'll arrive at a neat and organised workspace. 

Develop an Organised Virtual Filing System. It's always tempting to save files straight to your desktop. Don't. Not only will it slow your computer down, it will also make it impossible to find anything. Invest a bit of time in organising your virtual files. Keep it simple and logical, and create a standardised form for file names. This will make it much easier for you to find things in the future, and will reduce time wasted.

 Revolutionise Your To Do List. Make your first job of the week your to do list. Work on a weekly schedule of jobs to do – and note down all that needs to be achieved on each day. Make sure you don't pile on an unrealistic workload – and leave space for the ad hoc jobs that will pop up during the week. Once you've done this, each morning when you sit at your desk take ten minutes to review the list for that day. As a general rule, do the jobs you least want to do first – as this will lead to less procrastination for the rest of the day. 

If you're interested in further ways to help you get down to business and stay productive, you might find a chat with us about our virtual assistant services useful. Find our contact details here.

 

Catching Up With Your Inbox After Time Off

If you've just returned to work from holiday - you might be feeling a bit overwhelmed. For small companies and sole traders in particular, returning after a break can mean that you're facing a game of catch up. One of the biggest problems can often be getting back on top of your email inbox.

If you're inbox tends to see heavy traffic - a week away could lead to you coming back to unread emails in the triple figures. Our advice is to not let yourself get too sucked into it. In the first instance, move through your inbox quickly and separate the junk from the important messages.

Almost all email programs will allow you to flag emails for attention - and this can be a great way to get a more realistic picture of what you're dealing with. On your first go through your inbox, flag all those that need attention and/or a reply. You'll likely find that only half of the emails you've received during your time away actually need to be dealt with. Breathe a sigh of relief - and then work your way through them slowly.

We advise working in set time frames over a couple of days - try not to let your holiday catch up interfere with your normal work!

If you're looking for tips on managing your email inbox on an ongoing basis, we can help with that too. We offer an email management service and so have a lot of experience in working effectively and productively through inboxes. Take a look at our email management tips here. 

Why Should You Divert Your Calls?

Diverting your calls isn't a new thing. The process has been around for a long time, and has long been utilised by savvy business people who don't want to miss out on calls when they're out of the office.

The process is very easy to do and can be done by anyone - whether you're using a landland or a mobile. Some call packages will come pre-prepared for a call diversion service and some won't. So, before you start diverting your calls, you may have to advise your phone provider to activate the service. For BT customers, this service costs around £3 a month.

Call diversion can be used effectively in a number of different ways. Leaving the office but still want to be available to potential customers? No problem. Before you go out - divert your office landline to your mobile and pick up your calls wherever you are.

Alternatively, call diversion can be great if you want a bit of quiet to get on with some work or hold a meeting. Divert your landline in the same way, but direct it towards a colleague or even a telephone answering service like ourselves. This means that you can be sure that any callers will still be getting looked after - but that you won't be disturbed. Much more effective that taking the phone of the hook!

Is call diverting a service you use often? We'd like to hear about how it works for you. If it's not something you've used yet but might be interested in trying; we'll be sharing a tutorial on the blog in the next week. 

How Your Reception Desk Can Make You More Productive

If you're a regular reader of our blog, or follow us over on Twitter or Facebook - you'll know that we like to talk alot about productivity. One of the things we like to offer our clients through Your Reception Desk is more free time - uninterrupted time that they can use to get on with what they do best. In this way, we see ourselves as something of a productivity tool. Today we wanted to put together a list of the ways in which we can help you be more productive.

One - We can answer your phones.

This one may seem a little obvious. After all, we are a telephone answering company. However, many people don't think about the various ways in which passing control of your phones over can help you. Don't just think in terms of using us while you're away from your desk - use us while you're at your desk and have some important work to get done. Time interrupted by phone calls can be very productive - and we are able to help you achieve that.

Two - We can manage your emails.

Spend a great deal of your day separating the important emails from the junk in your inbox? Wouldn't your day be more productive if you were able to have someone else do that for you? We offer an email management service whereby we only notify you of the important things. 

Three - We can take care of your diary.

If we're managing your calls and or your emails for you - it makes sense for us to schedule meetings into your diary, too. We can take appointments over the phone and over email and put them into an electronic diary which will update you automatically. It's like having a personal assistant - but without having to pay the salary.

Four - We can receive faxes for you.

Let us set you up with a personal fax number, then distribute it among your clients and suppliers. When they fax, we'll receive it on our premises and then email you a digital copy straight away. This saves you the bother of maintaining a fax machine, having space for it on your desk and then trying to scan documents yourself. 

Sound like we could buy you some time to do more of what you do? Get in touch and we can have a chat.

How Much Time Do You Spend On Your Email?

We're probably showing our age here... but do you remember a time before businesses used email to communicate? Back in the 1990s when the medium began to grow in popularity, many business people avoided it like the plague because they feared it would take up too much of their time. Now, this sort of attitude seems ridiculous. How would we be able to run a business if we weren't able to communicate instantly via email?

However, that first attitude back in the 1990s wasn't so far from the truth. Many business people do find that email takes up a huge part of their days. We probably won't be wrong if we guess that the very first thing you do when you sit down at your desk in a morning is to check your emails. Are we right? Thought so. Then, most people leave their emails open all day, flicking back to it whenever a new item pops into their inbox.

But is this an effective way to manage your day? If you're working hard to meet deadlines, is flicking back and forwards to your inbox (and dealing with the issues new mail invariably creates) the best use of your time? Through our virtual assistant business, we work to make our clients more productive by managing communication lines such as their phones on their behalf. Our clients all claim to be able to get a surprising amount of work done just by switching their phones to us for an hour or so. 

We also offer email management, which is a popular way for clients to create even more space for productivity. So much of email is junk - and we're able to separate that from the genuine messages and make sure that our clients know what they need to, and only what they need to. 

Today we're asking the question; how much time do you spend on your email? And do you think you're managing it in a productive way, or not? Any tips to improve this? We'd love to hear them. 

 

Email Management: Some Tips

As part of the virtual assistant and telephone answering arm of our business, Your Reception Desk, we offer an email management service. Because of this, we're well aware of the techniques for managing your emails successfully. We've put together a few tips to help you to do the same.

Get into a routine. 

We've read many an article online from individuals who claim that they never check their email until lunchtime. Though there is certainly a productivity benefit in doing this - we don't suggest that this is a pieve of advice you follow. If you don't check your email, there's always the chance that you might miss an opportunity! Instead, we suggest that you do check your email in the morning - but that you don't necessarily feel obliged to deal with all correspondance right away. Instead, think about marking emails that require further attention (most email clients will allow you to 'flag' emails in some way) and returning to them once you have got a portion of your work done for the morning. 

Get organised.

Again, almost all email clients will allow you to create folders to store your emails within. Once emails have been dealt with, get into the habit of moving them from your inbox into a specified folder. This will make it easier to find them at a later date if you need to refer to them. It will also mean that your inbox will be a lot emptier, and a lot easier to manage!

Think carefully about subscriptions.

Almost all of us receive various emails that we are subscribed to, either on a weekly, monthly or daily basis. Think about whether you really want to receive these emails - for example; ask yourself if you have ever bought anything as a result of receiving emails from a certain company. If the answer is no, unsubscribe from them. Both you and your inbox are likely to breath a sigh of relief for doing so!