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Nowadays, data has a lot of importance for any organization or business. The digitization of data through manual data entry can help improve operational efficiencies. Although every company or business knows the importance of data to support their business operations, not all of these businesses have enough resources to buy manpower for this purpose. In this article, we are going to take a look at some benefits of outsourcing data entry assignments.

1. Time-saving

Often, every business has primary and secondary processes. The use of an in-house team to take care of these unimportant processes may increase the cost of business operations. In other words, it will involve hiring executives with fast typing skills.

On the other hand, if you outsource data entry assignments, you can have these repetitive tasks done by a service provider. This can help you reduce unnecessary expense and you can focus on more important business activities.

2. Advanced Technology

Most outsourcing service providers have advanced systems in place in order to provide quality services in a timely fashion. If you outsource your data entry projects, it will not only save you a lot of money but it will also eliminate the need to maintain the required infrastructure. Plus, you will enjoy great results every time.

The money you have saved can be spent on other things you need for your business. This can help you expand your business without spending a lot of additional money.

3. Smart Partnerships

Outsourcing firms can provide customer services. The reason is that they can easily scale up in order to meet the needs of their customers. If you work with a reputable service provider, you can easily grow your business without spending a lot of money on expensive hardware and software systems. In other words, this smart partnership between you and the service provider is a win-win deal for both parties.

4. Better Talent

Typically, outsourcing service providers have a team of talented professionals that you can depend on. An in-house team of talented professionals will cost you much more than outsourcing your assignments to remote workers. The reason is that you will have to hire these professionals on a permanent basis, and you will have to pay them on a monthly basis regardless of the number of projects you get.

5. Lower Operational Costs

We all know that outsourcing offers a lot of cost benefits for organizations across the globe. By outsourcing your data entry assignments, you can get the work done at a fraction of the cost of having an in-house team. In other words, you can enjoy a much lower operational cost. We know that operational costs are not easy to maintain for any business.

6. Improved Productivity

Outsourcing service providers always meet deadlines. Therefore, you can enjoy improved productivity without investing in inexpensive hardware or human resources. All of this can help you achieve higher operational productivity. And with the increase in productivity, you can make more sales and enjoy huge revenues.

7. Competitive Advantage

As a business owner, if you want to stay ahead of the competition, you have to make strategic decisions in order to ensure your business operations give you the best productivity. By outsourcing, you can get quick access to talented professionals to enjoy a lot of benefits, such as lower cost, higher productivity and quicker performance. All of this can help you to get a competitive advantage over your competitors.

Investing in the cryptocurrency market space is often complex especially for the traditional investors. This is because investing directly in Cryptocurrency requires the use of new technologies, tools and adopting some new concepts.
If you decide to dip your toes in the CryptoCurrency world, you will need to have a clear picture of what to do and what to expect.

Be it Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum or any of the 1300 tokens, buying and selling cryptocurrencies require you to choose an Exchange that deals in the products you want.

Being the most famous decentralized cryptocurrency, Bitcoin leads the crypto space so dominantly that the terms crypto and bitcoin are sometimes used interchangeably. However, the matter of fact is that there are other cryptocurrencies as well that can be relied upon for making crypto-investments.

Litecoin

Litecoin, also referred to as ‘silver to Bitcoin’s gold’ is an open-source decentralized payment network that functions without involving an intermediary.

How does Litecoin vary from Bitcoin? Well, both are similar in many ways, however the block generation of Litecoin is much faster than that of Bitcoin. This is making the investors around the world open to accept Litecoin.

Charlie Lee, a former engineer at Google founded Litecoin in 2011. Though Litecoin does not have the anonymity technology of Bitcoin, recent reports have shown that Litecoin is preferred after bitcoin because of its persistence. Another factor that favours Litecoin is the Bitcoin SegWit technology that means secure peer-to-peer trading of currencies without involving exchange participation.

Ethereum

Launched in the year 2015, Ethereum is a decentralized software platform that enables distributed applications and smart contracts to function without third party interference. The currency is the ether that is like an accelerator within the ethereum platform. In the leading cryptocurrencies space, Ethereum. is the second most preferred choice after Bitcoin.

Zcash

Zcash gained attention in the latter part of 2016 and focuses on solving the problem of anonymous transactions. To understand the currency, let’s take it as “if bitcoin is like HTTP for money, Zcash is HTTPS”.

The currency offers the choice of the shielded transaction to maintain the transparency, privacy and security of transactions. This means the investors can transfer data in the form of encrypted code.

Dash

Originally known as darkcoin, Dash is a more selective version of bitcoin. It was launched in January 2014 by Evan Duffield with the name Xcoin. It is also known as the Decentralized Autonomous Organization or simply DAO. The coin was meant to eradicate all the prevailing limitations of Bitcoin. Currently, Bitcoin has earned a substantial position in the space of cryptocurrencies.

The alternative to virtual currency that promises secured and anonymous transactions through peer-to-peer networking is cryptocurrency. The key to making a lot of money is to make the right investment at the right moment. In comparison to making the everyday money, cryptocurrency models function without involving any middle man as a decentralized digital mechanism. In this distributed cryptocurrency mechanism, the continuous activity is issued, managed and endorsed by the community peer network. The cryptocurrency is known for its speedy transactions over any other mode such as digital wallets and other mediums.

In addition to the above discussed, other top cryptocurrencies include Monero (XMR), Bitcoin Cash (BCH). EOS and Ripple (XRP).

Although bitcoin is the trend setter and is leading the race, other currencies have also made their significant position and are growing in preference each day. Considering the trend, the other cryptos will have a long way to stay and might soon give Bitcoin a real tough time to maintain its position.

If you have decided to make a speculative investment in this disruptive technology, and want to have all current and future recommendations, connect with “The Top Coins”.

Professional search engine optimization companies will tell you that there are certain effective SEO techniques that you cannot afford to ignore when it comes to your online marketing efforts. Every business that advertises or operates online should be incorporating SEO into their online marketing strategy to ensure that they achieve online success in the long run.

So where do you start? If you don’t have internet marketing experience, you are going to find that incorporating SEO into your marketing campaign is rather daunting and time consuming, which is why so many companies employ the services of a professionals search engine optimization company to do the hard work for them and they get to reap the rewards moving forward.

The first step is to identify what your audience wants and how they search. Knowing your audiences habits when they search online can help you tailor your SEO efforts accordingly. This may take some research. You can use your professionals search engine optimization company for this, let them do the groundwork on what your audience does when they are online to ensure you reach your target audience with ease and confidence.

Now that you have some idea on how your clients search and what they are looking for, you can start using SEO to boost your brand. The first step it to create search engine optimized landing pages. Landing pages are the pages your clients will arrive on and should be keyword focused, making it easier for the search engines to identify you and put your forward to your clients when they search for particular keywords or key phrases.

From here, you will need to focus on your website. As you know everyone these days are using mobile devices from smart phones to tablets, which means you need to optimize your website to meet the needs of these clients. Have you ever tried opening a website on your smart phone? If you have, you know how frustrating it is. You have to zoom in and zoom out to read anything, you wait a long time for pages to open and it’s just a frustration.

Having your website mobile optimized means that your site is easier for mobile users to use, search and buy. Google and other search engines will also reward you for moving with the times and incorporating mobile into your SEO campaign. In fact, companies that haven’t embraced the mobile market yet are finding that they are dropping in ranking as a result.

In addition to this, you should make use of infographs. Infographs have increased in popularity. They are informative and easy to understand. So if you want to attract the right clients to your website, speak to your professional search engine optimization company about adding some infographs to catch the attention of your audience and boost your website traffic on a daily basis.

Local SEO has become more essential than ever before and definitely not anything you should be forgetting about when putting your SEO campaign together. Local SEO focuses on your location. Google has taken a lot of time to make their searches more user friendly, helping users find the best services in their area. Incorporate your local information, such as your company name, address and contact number throughout your site and add it to your keywords to boost your rankings moving forward.

What you may not know is that ninety four percent of people searching the internet right now are searching for local and more than fifty of them will take the time to either visit or phone the store before making any purchases. So local SEO can be your next best friend for your online marketing campaign.

To be a profitable online entrepreneur, you need to do a number of things that will keep the search engines happy. The search engines can send lots visitors to your website everyday if they think it benefit their users. But you have to optimize your website so that they can quickly and easily understand what your website is about.

This process is called search engine optimization (SEO) and here are 5 tips that you can use today to boost the position of your business in the search rankings.

1. Focus On An Easy Search Phrase

Ideally you want keywords on your website pages that have lots of demand and little supply. The best phrases are often the phrases that are three or four keywords long. They may begin with “How to” or “Tips for”. Use keyword tools to help you find those unique keyword phrases to focus on.

2. Social Bookmark Your Key Pages

Social bookmarking is basically bookmarking a web page so that you can read it later. You can bookmark your pages on sites like Reddit, Digg and StumbleUpon. Website pages that are added on social bookmarking sites are regarded as a quality backlink by search engines. The more quality links you have coming into your website, the further up the rankings you will appear.

3. Internal Linking

Create an internal linking structure throughout your website to attract attention to these pages. Internal link building helps search engines, but it also helps your audience find your information in a more organized fashion.

4. Improve Your Existing Content

Search engines like Google keep their procedures and ranking techniques secret, because they want to deliver the best search-results for their users and stop spam pages from hindering those results. But there are some golden rules you can follow:

Place keywords in your headline
Make use of keywords in your subheadings
Include keywords in your first and last paragraph
Place relevant and supporting keywords throughout the body of the copy
5. Publish More Keyword-Rich Content
Content is what the search engines index. The more suitable content you have, the more value is placed on your site. Bear in mind that publishing a heap of 500 word blog posts that have no reason other than SEO isn’t going to help if they’re not targeted and filled with meaning. You need to find a voice for your business and stick to it with a tight focus.

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.