Fuelled by Coffee

Nan Berrett - Word Solutions I was lucky enough to win a copy of a great book ‘Doing Good, by Doing Good’ by Peter Baines which talks about the importance of having strategies in your business which can help organisations transform the communities they work with through charitable activities. As a solo-preneur (and silverpreneur) I don’t have a corporate structure of employees to help me give back to my community, but this shouldn’t stop anyone from giving back. I’ve always been one of those people who put their hand up for everything – from helping in the school canteen when I could, to getting involved in kids pony club and so on. For more than 15 years my focus turned to being an active member of a local service club, Zonta International. Zonta focusses on empowering women worldwide to be the best they can be, raising them up through education, health initiatives and more. To me, giving back is so important. It makes others feel good, which then, in return, makes me feel good.  ...

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 ...

I've been thinking about Kaizen and how I apply it to my business processes This week, I’ve been thinking about Kaizen – the Japanese approach to improvement or change for the better – some business places may know this better as ‘continuous improvement’, but it is also a word meaning ‘small changes’ for optimal results. There are five traditional elements to the practice of Kaizen which include teamwork, personal discipline, improved morale, quality circles and suggestions for improvement. But I see it as a whole practice which looks at ways to improve our workflow or work practices to achieve the best outcome – and we do this by taking small steps towards our end goal. Sometimes we must also look at improving single steps towards our goals more than once in order to perfect that step. Kaizen has been used successfully by many major businesses and there are plenty of examples if you fancy a Google search, but in simple terms the practice can be used in our own small busine...

I write a lot - so why don't I write for myself? I write a lot - and I mean, a LOT. I write for other people, I write notes about client meetings, I email for all sorts of reasons, I write minutes and plans and processes, media releases and reports, but what I have trouble doing is finding, or rather making, the time to write for my own business and myself. So what's with that? I've given a lot of thought recently about how procrastination about your own business promotion and marketing leads to such a range of mixed feelings - from anxiety to low self esteem, to fear and other complex issues which surround entrepreneurs and small business owners. We often talk the good talk, urge our clients to take action and take action on their behalf, but like the car mechanic who may have the worst behaving vehicle in the neighbourhood, we seem totally incapable of making ourselves get on with working on our business instead of in it! When I look back at the few blog post...