Fuelled by Coffee

By Nan Berrett - Word Solutions:  Overwhelmed and heading towards burnout? I’ve been busy lately – there have been disruptive influences in my life and when I don’t have a straight line of sight to an end goal I get flustered, anxious and, yes, tired. I tend to overshare a bit when it comes to my business running about, and this results in my well-meaning and much wiser friends, colleagues and family counselling me on the possibilities of burnout and the need to pace myself. Of course, they’re right, but it’s often easier said than done when you have a pile of responsibilities, but I have taken their advice on board and thought about things I can do to lessen my tendency to overdo things. Here’s what I think I can do, should do, and do do!   “Take rest. A field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.” — Ovid 1.       Take a deep breath . Sometimes, all we need to do to push away those feelings of anxiety or overwhelm is to take a breath. Go ...

by Nan Berrett - Word Solutions Don't get caught out with an old scam, which seems to have surfaced again. An email turns up in your inbox announcing itself to be from a 'Network Service Company which is a domain registration centre in China. It says they have received an application from a business wanting to register your business name as their internet 'keyword' in various configurations. They say they are in China but have checked and have found the domain name belongs to you and conflicts with your business. Then they ask you to contact them and confirm whether this is your company/business name and want to check whether you are, or have, a distributor or business partner in China. Research has shown that this scam results in you being offered a deal to secure your domain name in China, or elsewhere, and when you pay you may find you end up with a very large bill, or a recurring payment you were not expecting. This domain registration scam was first reported in 201...

by Nan Berrett - Word Solutions Sitting with your back to a door where someone can walk silently up behind you and tap you on the shoulder is one of my nightmares. Whenever I go out, to dinner, a cafe or anywhere else, I try and place myself with my back to a wall, facing outwards – I’m not keen on surprises! Which brings me to my home office. I used to work in an office with other people – it was open plan and for some inexplicable reason two of us had desks facing the wall with our backs to our colleagues. It was horrible. Walls are generally unattractive, not to know what was going on behind us was distracting, and when we did manage to get into the zone and tune everything out we were easily startled when spoken to. Open plan offices were originally designed to encourage collaborative thinking, but instead developed into spaces where bosses could monitor what their workers were doing. In most offices, open plan does not work as it was intended – sadly, the majority of these open pl...