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You can enjoy a lot of benefits if you have your business listed in an internet directory, such as Top5Biz.com. In fact, the more directories you use the greater number of benefits you can enjoy. Given below are some of the prominent benefits of using these directories. Read on to find out more.

Exposure

We know that proper exposure is required for all types of businesses. The more exposure your business gets, the higher number of visitors will know about your products or services. On the other hand, if your prospective customers can’t find your site, they won’t be able to buy your products or services.

By listing your business website in these directories, you can get the exposure you need. As a matter of fact, a large number of people search these directories in order to find what they are looking for. Their goal is to look for a specific product or service.

Better Ranking

We know that better ranking is important for any website. If your website is indexed in many web directories, it will send a signal to search engine crawlers that your website is authentic. And this will help you get your website ranked on major search engines. As a result, you will be able to enjoy better rankings in major search engines.

These directors get your website ranked better and get the word out about your business. And this is a huge benefit.

Inexpensive Advertising

If you run a business, you know the importance of advertisement. The primary purpose of advertisement is to help clients find your business and know more about it. You may not have a big budget for your advertisement campaigns. This is where you can spend a little money and achieve the purpose by getting your website indexed in internet directories.

Unlike the conventional advertising, business directories are much affordable. Therefore, they can help you save tons of money on advertisement.

Professional Opinion

If you want your business to look professional in the eyes of your visitors, we suggest that you try internet directories. This will help you improve your business status. In other words, this technique will help you make buyers have a professional opinion about your business.

Once your site is listed in these directories, it will look as professional as the top business enterprises out there. Aside from this, your website will be considered an authority in the niche. As a result, you will be able to get more and more customers and clients.

Search Engine Optimization

Internet directories offer another great benefit, which is called search engine optimization. Basically, these directories allow you to get a lot of inbound links. When a visitor finds your site in the directory, they will click he link and get directed to your website. So, this is an effective way of getting a lot of traffic.

Just like other people working in the virtual world I also want to become a best Virtual Assistant. This desire spring up when I was taking up the virtual assistant course.

In this article, I’m going to share with you my realization from these desire for you to become a useful Virtual Assistant. These can be very helpful to you, yes you who are reading this, Why? Not everyone in this field becomes successful either with the relationship with their Clients or their working habits because they miss out at least one aspect in their life and that makes them unsuccessful. So I am sharing this for you to become mindful of the things that will make you successful.

For you to become the best Virtual Assistant, we must possess the following traits I listed here:

Skills – Computer and internet may be an essential tool to work as a virtual assistant, but that is not the most important thing, it is our Skills. Why? 80% of our job is Administrative, 10% Creativity and 10% technical. Clients /employers will not outsource or hired a Virtual Assistant who is just making there resume cool to look at, putting skills they don’t know only to make a good impression to Client and when Client ask for samples of your skills written on our curriculum vitae we fail to give the clients expectation from us. That will only create a wrong impression to your Clients and possible you will become blacklisted. Learning is good, but if you just keep on learning but you do not develop the skills that you have and what you learned by practicing it is nothing. PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE is the secret to excellence and perfection of your skills.

Teachable heart – when a client has already outsourced you because you have the skills, it doesn’t mean you are already perfect, and you don’t need any advice. Remember, perfection comes through continues learning. You must learn to accept teaching/corrections from your Clients because first, it is their business they know how does it run, second, it will help us grow in both knowledge and skills. Having a teachable heart means you are giving yourself a room where you can improve.

Good Personality – Having a good character with your client is very important because you are building a relationship with them. You make them trust you by outsourcing you to become part of their company and their lives. These are some of the personality that we must have kindness, joyful, love, faithfulness, patience, hardworking, etc., Always keep in mind that when you have a good personality, you work positively.

Integrity- Let your yes be Yes and No be No. Integrity means honesty, no compromising and no lying to your client and your self too. If we promise to work and give our project on a specific date and time, then we must finish it and submit it on or before the deadline.
This is only a few of the many writings you can read on the internet about how to become a best Virtual Assistant. And this is the fact, no matter how many articles you will read on the internet about this topic, no matter how many Virtual Assistant courses you are going to take up, no matter how many advice you will ever hear, if you don’t help yourself to grow and achieve what is right then everything will become useless. If you have a teachable heart, a good personality and integrity you are allowing yourself to accept new learning and corrections for you to grow as a virtual assistant then it would be more natural for you to have the skills because skills can be developed to excellence to perfection if you have the three.

If you are writing content for your website, then definitely you want it to reach to the target audience. That’s precisely why your content should be SEO friendly. Here are some tips to generate SEO friendly content:

1) Create informative, interesting content
The content that you create should be of high quality and interesting enough to engage your audience. If your content is not unique or is just stuffed with keywords, search engines will penalize your website on one hand and on the other your visitors will definitely go away from your website, never to return again. So, the first tip is to create informative, interesting and easy to understand unique content.To find if your content is 100% unique, there are several plagiarism tools available. Copyscape is one such tool where you can check the originality of your content.Only if the content is unique, you can get a better rank in SERPs.

2) Captivating Headings and Sub headings
A captivating heading can capture your visitor’s attention and convince them to stay on your website. Brainstorm your headline and try to fit in within 55 to 60 characters as this is precisely what Google displays on the SERP.

Content that has heading and subheadings along with the relevant keywords gets more weightage by the search engines. As such, Google ranks such content higher and your website will enjoy better page rank. Another advantage of using headings and subheadings is that it makes for an easy read. When people like what they read, they are more likely to share it on social media. For this, you may use the structure of H1 to H6 or insert H2 and H3 headings at the relevant places in the article body.

3) Links
Linking your website with some of the authority websites will have a positive impact on your website. So, create outbound links with authority websites. Creating outbound links with authority websites gives an impression that you have a sound understanding of what you are writing and that you are going one step further to support your content. It also adds to the transparency and trust. However, you must avoid using anchor texts such as “here” as it does not do any good to your website ranking.

4) Article Length
While Google loves longer article, it must be understood that the span of reader’s interest is quite limited. Therefore, you need to strike a balance in your content. It should neither be too short nor be too long. While the minimal length of the article stands at 300 words, there’s no upper limit. However, an article that’s around 700 to 800 words would be perfect.

5) Keywords and Keyword density
Before you write an article for your website, find out the keywords that you should be targeting. The keywords should be placed in the article title, headings, subheadings, and in the first and the last para of your article. The key here is not to overdo it. Maintaining 1% keyword density is good for search engine. Also, try to use variations of the keyword in the article for optimal results.

6) Pictures speak volumes
Add images to your article to make it attractive to your visitors. Optimize the image and tag it with the keyword for SEO. The key would be to make the image smaller, without compromising on the visibility. Adding images with bigger file sizes will slow down your page loading speed and may shoo away the visitors. Also, add alt text or title to your image. Think from a user’s perspective when you name the images.

7) Share your content
If people read something they really like, they readily share it on social media. So, to make people share your content, give them the option to do so. You can “AddThis” or “Sharethis” website to add the social media buttons to your website. If the content goes viral, your website will automatically be ranked higher.

Traditionally, search engine optimisation was the remit of the technical web team and activity was concentrated around tagging and HTML elements of the site. Whilst this is still important, the algorithms that search engines operate have become much more complex and businesses wanting to achieve the greatest return on investment must treat SEO as an integrated discipline.

If you don’t offer quality content, relevant to the reader, your visibility in rankings will be non-existent, so the website copywriter and wider marketing team must have appropriate insight. Social media signals are also increasingly important to search bots, so you must be sure to educate the people managing your social network profiles so they know how to correctly optimise posts. Speak to your PR team too about how they can help to create valuable links to your website from relevant sources and ensure they are creating internal links from your on-site blog.

In my experience, people across a range of departments say they understand search and what they need to do, but they don’t deliver when it comes to planning and undertaking optimised activity. The technical aspects can be a barrier as can confidence in their actions, but more often than not it’s just a matter of them not being able to put the required thought and effort in. This is because, understandably, it’s not really within their remit and therefore not their priority. Therefore, it’s crucial to get buy in from all department heads and use a top down approach so that SEO becomes a priority for everyone that has the ability to add value.

I would suggest a single team or individual continues to manage your efforts from a central position, but almost all departments should be educated on the benefits, and pitfalls, of SEO. One way of tackling this is to create a training manual that first introduces the concept of SEO and best practice in a basic way and then details your own strategy, keywords and processes. This should be supplemented with the exact requirements placed on teams or individuals along with instances. For example, the social media team must schedule a post every two weeks that incorporates a keyword and a link and they must then monitor the engagement, click through numbers and keyword position in the local search engine. Or, the PR team must request a link to the website from every piece of online coverage, aiming for a certain percentage success rate.

Sharing case studies is a great way of motivating people, so try to explain activity in terms of what another brand has achieved. This can also be positioned in relation to your own objectives and what the benefit could be if these are reached; you want to rank on the first page of Google for a certain term and because X number of people search for this term on a monthly basis, you hope to see an increase in traffic of X. Such clear targets and messages of big ambition could give an early boost your integrated SEO activities.

Using your own reporting data is also key. Share the real-life benefits achieved, including positions in search engine rankings, visitors to the site, telephone enquiries that originated with a search and sales conversions. Most people like to know that they are making a difference so it’s important to use such insight to continue motivating. What I also find helpful is to map activities against others, rankings and traffic data in order to find correlations. Using the annotation function in Google Analytics is one helpful way to record activity, but monitoring and reporting should be considered from the start and specified at the strategy stage.

Whether the business is relatively small, meaning some people look after more than one area, or it’s a global corporation that utilises significant agency support, an integrated SEO approach is the same. Buy-in from the whole company, central strategic thought, clear departmental requirements and organisation is required. The resource required is far from small, but the returns gained by being at the top of search engine results pages can be enormous.

Our businesses also differ in terms of interface with clients. If you do “business to business” transactions, the number of people you interact with on a daily basis may differ from someone whose business relies on interacting with consumers. Appointments may be more practical in some instances than others. You have to tailor-make how you manage access to your particular situation if you are to eliminate distractions. Having said that it is important to note that some people do not mind spending the whole day at the office entertaining friends, visitors, and casual acquaintances dropping into the office whenever they feel like it. Do not be that kind of person. It sets the wrong kind of example to junior staff and can harm one’s productivity because these people take up time that you do not have and besides you want to cultivate a professional environment.

The demands of the day are enough to fill the eight working hours available unless if you tend to stay back and play catch up. How do you stay competitive in the market if there is no separation between work and play? Anybody serious about success and achieving effective results will put boundaries that are clear so that there is no confusion. Entrepreneurs are more susceptible to this especially when the workplace is easily accessible. The fact that you are your own boss even puts more responsibility on you to maintain self-discipline and self – management. I have written a whole book called, “Achieve More through Self – Leadership. In it I walk you through the practicalities of how you can get better results through managing self.

Appointments are an important way of not only managing time but managing life. They help you become more structured and productive. Some people seem not to be able to honour their appointments. I once attended a job interview that was supposed to start at 10:30am. By 11:30am there had been no communication about what was happening or when the supposed job interview was going to take place. I decided at the point that this company was probably not good enough for me to join because if you don’t respect people’s time you probably do not respect them.

You may be saying appointments are just not for me yet you never rock up at the doctor, dentist, lawyer or hairstylist without an appointment. Why is that the case? Because you simply won’t see the dentist without an appointment. They have given you conditions acceptable to them. We tell the world around us how to treat us by what we allow.

Some people are always available when you want to see them. If you are always free to see people at short notice, you are probably not that organized. The one who owns a diary will manage the one who doesn’t own one. Why? Because the one without the diary is always available, even though he is very likely to forget important meetings, dates and engagements because of a lack of organization. I used to have a boss who kept a diary and whatever you promised to do in the line of work, he would write down, including the day and time you said he would have it by. You would of-course forget because you didn’t record it like he did and when the time to deliver comes, guess who would be found wanting. It was then that I decided that I do not commit to an action that I am not willing to write down because, what’s written gets done!

You may be saying, “what if my business feeds off the “walk-ins? The fact that your business relies on walk – in customers should not be an excuse for disorder. Sometimes those who drop in unannounced may indeed be potential customers, suppliers, cold-calling salespeople, and even worthwhile business contacts. There is nothing wrong if the call is beneficial to you and your business but I believe there must be a structure and way of doing things that follows certain pre-set principles. I remember seeing a poster in an office that said “if you don’t have anything to do please don’t do it here”. It’s humorous yes, but true. Appointments help to structure your day and helps you allocate time to what’s important. This means you can focus on your most important asset: the paying customer. There is nothing as bad as walking into a place wanting to do business and staff are inattentive because there is just a demand on their time. I am more understanding if the personnel are not busy entertaining social visits at work.

In conclusion, you know your business situation better than any of us. All we can do is make recommendations that will enable efficiency that leads to growth. Some of you may actually need a personal assistant who will put order in your office and focus on the things you are not willing to do that will enable to focus on the highly value things you ought to do such as running a business.

Do you think successful people are just plain lucky?

Successful people did not become successful because they were lucky.

They did not achieve success by accident. Being at the right place at the right time, meeting relevant people, reading the appropriate book, did not come about accidentally or by luck.

Luck is brought about by Labour Under Correct Knowledge.

Successful people prepared themselves. Instead of giving up on anything they started and wanted to achieve they got stronger by learning more.

Success is a methodical, orderly and deliberate process of deciding what you want to do with your life, what are the steps that you need to undertake to get you there, and lastly what you will do once you get there.

One of the most important aspects, if not the most important aspect to success, is the ability to visualise your successful outcome and stay focused on it until you achieve it.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge, knowledge is limited.” – Albert Einstein

Successful people understood the potential power behind knowledge, yet they also understood that, for them to close the gap between where they are and where they wanted to be, they would have to piece together the enigma that is most often referred to as “life”.

They had to build a picture, a vision, of success in their mind, and then go about taking action on creating that envisioned life.

In much the same way, you have to be serious about your present and future, you need to have the knowledge that is required so you, too, may close the gap: you need to be and remain determined to devote yourself to taking massive action to build your business of succeeding in life.

You, too, will need to see the end, your dream and destiny that you desire in your mind’s eye. It is up to you to take the necessary and relevant action to make it all happen. It’s just like going to the doctor with a particular health problem.

The doctor may prescribe a medication for you to take four times a day, yet he cannot be there with you to ensure that you are taking the medication.

It comes back to deciding to be responsible for your life.

Have you noticed how it all stems from that one attitude? Being responsible for your own life.

Your success, your being responsible 100% for you to live your dream life starts here.

When you accept 100% responsibility for yourself and your current life situation, you will have the power to move towards those things you truly desire in life: which is success in all areas of your life.

This life-changing article is about possibilities and opportunities, knowledge and tools. It will help expose your unique course in life.

It will inspire, support and motivate you to excel, to do what successful people do, to have all that successful people have, and to become a shining example of a successful person.

Here, you’re not being told what you couldn’t do, instead you are being told to shoot for the stars. And above all, you are being shown how to shoot for those stars.

“A person is what he thinks about all day long.” – Emerson

Interesting thought, wouldn’t you think? So much so, it’s worth repeating: “A person is what he thinks about all day long.”

Success and happiness cannot happen if you possess the same old thoughts and beliefs.

If you do not change your mind, if you do not get rid of the unsupportive thoughts and beliefs, you will inevitably remain stuck in your old ways. Not much, if anything, will change.

Let’s give you a quick overview on how change comes about:

Your BEHAVIOUR, how you act (or perhaps do not act), controls your success or failure. Your ability to attain high levels of success is dependent upon your actions and behaviours. Your results are the outcome of your behaviour. Now let’s consider where your behaviours come from and what controls them?

Your FEELINGS command your behaviour. Every action that you take is first filtered through your feelings that reside in your subconscious mind. How you feel about something determines what you do and how well you do it. So where do your feelings come from?

Your ATTITUDES create and influence your feelings. Your attitude is your perspective from which you view life. Whatever attitude you have about anything will affect how you feel, which, in turn, affects how you act. Where do your attitudes come from?

Your BELIEFS create, control and influence your attitudes. What you believe about anything will determine your attitude about it, which will create your feelings, and then which will direct your behaviour and action. Belief patterns are so powerful that two people who are in the same situation could perceive things completely differently. It only requires us to believe what we see and how we see it. We all have thousands of beliefs – big and small. And where do your beliefs come from?

Your THOUGHTS create, control and influence your beliefs. Your thoughts are real and are immensely powerful. Everything you accept from the outside world and everything you feed yourself from within is a product of your thoughts. Everything starts as a thought.

So, it goes without saying you need to learn to control your thoughts. And when you do, you will automatically control your beliefs, your attitudes, your feelings and, consequently, your behaviour and actions.

The big secret to success:

Learn to control your thoughts and you will influence your behaviours and actions. It’s all a mind-set. That’s what we’ve been saying all along.

Success is predictable and is not achieved by accident.

Have the mind-set of the successful people and you will achieve success. Believe and it is yours!

“There is a great future in front of you, you can leave your past behind.” – Joel Osteen

Science of success experts have concluded that the brain is a goal-setting organism.

That is fantastic news for us: for whatever goal we give to our subconscious mind, it will work for us day and night, 24/7, to achieve it for us; to make it a reality.

The principal breakthrough that scientists made was that we do not need to waste our precious time and effort trying to change old thoughts and behaviours: we just simply create new ones.

And the other discovery they made was that we can continue to create new thoughts, new memories, new behaviours, new skills, and learn new things for as long as we are alive on this earth.

Now, with the new discoveries in recent years, it has been scientifically proven that our capacity to achieve and succeed literally has no limits.

Our brain has the capacity to continually learn during our entire lifetime.

Our brain can form new thoughts, can have new memories, and can learn new things by the millions, no matter what your age is. By the millions.

That’s how many new things we can learn, that’s how many new skills we can learn, that’s how many new thoughts we can have, that’s how many new behaviours we can adopt.

This is encouraging because there is no limit on your capacity to achieve new things.

No limits whatsoever for the human brain to learn, memorise, develop, achieve and perform at higher levels than ever imagined. It makes no difference what your age is: you are capable of learning anything new that you want to learn.

That adds to what we spoke of earlier: no more excuses.

“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.” – Malcolm X

Your brain has the capacity to achieve way beyond what was ever thought possible. So now is the time to break out of your limited thinking and start dreaming big and imagining unlimited possibilities.

Becoming successful is not impossible.

It is a choice you make through a decision. Every day, step-by-step, you may climb the mountain of success if you’ve decided to do so, if you’re committed to accomplish what the others think impossible.

Design your future now.

Prepare to receive what you desire.

Thanks to the phenomenal advances made in cognitive science and the development of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), personal change, personal transformation, has come a very long way.

In fact, personal growth is no longer a mystery.

NLP has brought to light that change, transformation and growth can be fast, reliable, and even fun. It has shown us that we do not need to spend thousands of hours slaving away to increase our creative-thinking abilities.

By practicing a few simple exercises and applications, you can start your creative juices flowing, and you may even amaze yourself at the quality and quantity of good ideas that you can come up with to expedite your success.

It can allow you to achieve something you seek within days and months as opposed to years and decades. That’s the power of the progress science has made on how the brain works, and also how you can have your mind to be your best ally in achieving anything you want.

Learn to live as you like by no longer living as you dislike.

Are you ready to get on the road to success and fulfilment?

Bear in mind, much like everything else in life, success requires practice and massive, consistent action.

“Success doesn’t mean the absence of failures; it means the attainment of ultimate objectives. It means winning the war, not every battle.” – Edwin C Bliss

Do you feel as if you’ve outgrown your circle of friends? Perhaps you do not feel safe or understood any longer. There may be fewer and fewer things you can share with people in your habitual circle, and it leaves you feeling lonely or isolated. If so, you are not alone. Welcome to one of the core dynamics of continuous growth!

As we continue to evolve, many of us struggle with a sense of not quite fitting in with our traditional community or tribe: we may have expanded or changed beyond the borders of tribal norms, and no longer find the same sense of belonging there. Other members may have tightened the tribal rules to foster a sense of security. As a result, we may feel a sense of disconnection or alienation.

In truth, each one of us belongs to many tribes simultaneously: there is your original tribe – the family you were born into – and then there are all the communities of choice you have joined: your work tribe, your social circles, your faith-based community, your neighborhood, and more. These communities are not static; they are in continuous flux because they consist of individuals who are in continuous states of change. When there is a lot of change happening in either the individual or the community, a sense of dissonance results.

How are we to deal with this? First, it is important to recognize that tribal allegiances were historically forged for survival. They were adapted over the course of centuries to ensure the safety and survival of the group. Survival required that individuation be sacrificed for the trade-off of security.

In modern society, the tables are flipped. Whether we enjoy it or not, change is essential for survival at every level of being. The pace of change is driven by technological advances and happens with increasing rapidity: sociologists estimate that more change has taken place in society over the course of the past 100 years, than in the totality of the previous 6,000 years. Individual adaptation now is a requirement for survival, and the pace of individual change does not always match the pace at which our various tribal communities evolve. The resulting dissonance can cause intense friction and pain.

Dissonance also results from confusion between the concepts of ‘connection’ and ‘community.’ We tend to equate one with the other, when they really relate to different qualities. Connection relates to connectivity: the objective physical technology or media that enables us to build community, but which does not represent the quality of that community. Connectivity simply offers the opportunity to connect with others through internet, texting, phone calls, or any other social networking options.

Community is the result of building relationship through meaningful interaction over time. There is no shortcut; it is a process that develops when bonds of trust and intimacy are nurtured and honored.

And here lies a caveat: When we confuse connectivity with community, we depersonalize the sacred nature of true community and start relating to people as objects. Instead of developing intimacy over time, we collect friends on social network sites or try to buy people’s allegiance. Yet friending is simply an act of connecting; it does not create intimacy.

In fact, social experiments indicate that technologically dominated connectivity results in alienation and social collapse over time. In a groundbreaking social experiment conducted by Josh Harris, one of the founders of social networking on the internet, he found that the more people’s private lives were exposed by 24/7 technology, the more their sense of intimacy and relationship deteriorated until the community collapsed in violence and self-destructive behavior.

It is time to revisit our concepts of community so we can create tribes that offer a true sense of intimacy and belonging.

In his 1987 book, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace, psychologist M. Scott Peck described several core characteristics of true community. Beyond the obvious components of inclusivity, commitment and participatory consensus, Peck pointed out the quality of embracing diversity through realism. When each member contributes their unique viewpoint from a place of humility and goodwill, the community benefits from a broader perspective in which to better grasp the full context of a situation. In other words, mutual tolerance helps members to embrace one another’s different viewpoints as an integral part of the whole, instead of imposing a forced compliance to groupthink or cohesion.

In an environment like this, members experience and express compassion and respect for one another. They allow others to share their vulnerability, to learn and grow, and to express who they truly are. When conflict arises, they learn to resolve it with wisdom and grace. Members listen to and respect each others’ gifts, accept each others’ limitations, celebrate their differences, and commit to find solutions together rather than to fight against each other. Indeed, the true spirit of community is the spirit of peace, love, wisdom and power. The source of this spirit may be seen as an outgrowth of the collective self or as the manifestation of a Higher Will.

Does this description of community sound spiritual to you? It is indeed, because Spirit is the common denominator among all of us, regardless of how separate we feel from others.

As human beings, we often experience a socio-economic sense of separation from others because of different opinions, beliefs, expectations, language, culture, or interests, since each one of us expresses these in a way uniquely different from anyone else. And still, we continue to differentiate! In this ongoing process, we continue to evolve or devolve in response to life. A community that felt like a good fit last year may no longer work today; the places where we felt embraced, now may suffocate us. Over the course of a lifetime, we can expect to outgrow and change allegiances to many of the tribal communities we once belonged to.

And yet, when we transcend the layers of physical appearance, mental beliefs and socio-economic conditioning, we find in the presence of Spirit a common denominator in everyone around us. Perhaps it is time to expand our tribal definitions to embrace a spiritual community that includes all of mankind as children of God.

Mother Teresa admonished her nuns to see Jesus in every leper they encountered, to find His presence as they looked into the eyes of the homeless. When we can look past the issues that divide us to find omnipresent Divinity in each other, we will uncover the foundations of true community.

Spiritual community transcends all socio-economic borders, beliefs and backgrounds. It is inclusive because it operates on voluntary self-responsibility and mutual compassion, and its doors are open to everyone.

Building this type of community takes time: time to listen, to hear, to respond and to participate. Take a few moments to read the description of spiritual community again. Then, make time in your life to foster that type of connection with people who matter to you. You are one of the architects of community in your life, and you can participate in building a tribe where you belong.

What would happen to you if your home life was more organized than it is right now? Can work-life balance be achieved? What are the tools at our disposal? Could scheduling appointments and keeping them at home help us save time and prioritize?

What is the challenge we face? I sometimes find that time spent at home can be the busiest time, especially in the times we live in. Imagine someone working from home, home-schooling children, and sometimes even doing a side hustle. Imagine also the full-time home-based entrepreneur. How do they manage to do all they need to do in a day?. We are living in a time when many entrepreneurs and even company employees have adopted work- at – home culture. This comes with its challenges as the lines become blurred between home and work. These blurred lines and constraints on the limited resource called time result in over-worked, under-rested, burnt-out individuals. Whilst good time management has been encouraged and indeed, embraced in the workplace, I believe more needs to be done in changing the mindset for the elusive work-life balance to be achieved.

What are the tools at our disposal? To manage time effectively at home, there are many interventions one can employ including setting goals for the day, prioritizing wisely, setting a time limit for every task, organizing oneself, and instituting the discipline of appointments. Yes, an appointment at home! We can spend time pontificating on the pros and cons of each intervention, however, I believe we need to focus on appointments and see how this can powerfully change the course of one’s day regardless of whether it’s a workday or weekend. Life is busy as it is without any intrusions. The question is how do you handle the one who announces that they are at the gate. These can be friends, neighbors, a salesman of some product you do not even need. I am not promoting regimentation here but rather a culture of filling your day with what’s important. Everything that we succeed at is because we carefully plan and execute it. I am a firm believer that you cannot manage time if you do not manage yourself thus I implore you to incorporate planning and appointments into your repertoire. I am not talking about something I do not do. I have to achieve many things in a day therefore I set appointments with my work, others, and myself.

Could scheduling appointments and keeping them on the home front help us save time and prioritize? Whereas we have established that it is a normal business practice to set appointments and keep them, we need to abandon the liberal open-door policy of allowing all and sundry to have access to us as and when they please on the home front. Please understand where I am coming from. We each have greatness within us but for us to achieve it we need to culture great habits. Employing the use of appointments at home and seeing only those people you had agreed to see removes non-essential encounters especially during the most productive hours. I know this will vary with culture, geographical region, or even level of affluence, whether you live in a low density or high-density residential area, but doesn’t negate the need to be organized and effective. Controlling access determines how organized you are and how well you will work and rest when the time for scheduled rest comes.

What do we need to do differently? We need to be disciplined and diligent, learn to say no, now is not a good time, let’s make an appointment for next week. What are the benefits of this approach? You are not always fire-fighting to meet deadlines, You are not always tired because you have not taken time out to rest. You have set aside enough time to spend with your loved ones or a loved one. If you are a busy person, I am sure you appreciate what I am saying. Whether it’s time to work uninterrupted, family time, or “me-time”, it takes some kind of order to enjoy it.

I am not saying that those that come unannounced are bad people. No, not at all, they probably are people you enjoy spending time with. Nevertheless, there must be prior communication so that you can attend to your visitor(s) when it is convenient for both you and them. It can be quite disrupting and a whole day can just pass by without achieving anything that you had planned to do.

As we grow older we begin to appreciate that rest and recovery need to be scheduled. The fact that I am relaxing doesn’t mean that I don’t have anything to do. One therefore cannot assume that just because you are at home you are available. Maybe you have scheduled that time to rest. That is important. You need to make an appointment with yourself, spouses need to also set aside time for each other. Parents need to schedule a time to spend with their children. When you have some sort of order in your life you determine who sees you and who you see. It also means that your relationships will be healthy and that makes you a happier person.

In conclusion, I believe that the work-life balance can be achieved. There are many tools at our disposal just like it is in the workplace.I believe we could do more and be happier if we are disciplined enough to make only the commitments we can keep.I am certain that setting appointments and keeping them at home help us save time and prioritize.