Its time to think about Christmas Shopping.

The end of the financial year is a fantastic time to go Christmas shopping. Not because you have time on your hands, in fact it is to save time, save money and save stress.

However like everything it is important to plan your shopping trip. It is time to think Christmas Shopping. So it’s important to have a plan.

Planning
First, consider who you have to buy Christmas gifts for. Think immediate family, extended family, kinder and school teachers, sporting coaches … spend time now making a complete list.
Next, consider how much you would like to spend in total on Christmas gifts. Then consider how much you will spend on each gift. This will ensure you keep within your Christmas budget while shopping.


Thirdly, take some time to think about what would be a suitable present for each gift you need to purchase. This will allow you to think creatively and provide some direction while shopping which will save you more time.


Benefits
By starting your Christmas shopping early it will ensure you maintain your budget, can shop without pressure, emotional guilt and temptation which often occurs when you just need to purchase a gift in a hurry.

Oh and remember it is easier to leave the kids at home this time of year. Ideally everyone else around you will not be out shopping so you can get a babysitter for the afternoon. This will give you more time to think clearly and shop wisely.

Like everything it is worth doing the hard yards now so that you will be able to enjoy the Christmas period instead of making it hard work.

Happy planning and successful shopping.

About Us
LifeStyle Refocus is a Melbourne based personal assistant, corporate concierge and lifestyle management consultancy. They are all about saving you TIME. By taking care of your “to do” or “wish list” so you can spend time doing the things that are truly important to you. For more information go to www.lifestylerefocus.com.au or contact Silvana on 0417 595 744 or Michele on 0437 311 802.

End of Financial Year – Great time to review!

We often focus at the end of the year on our review of the year that has gone, and consider plans for the New Year and then set goals based on what has been identified. The end of the financial year is also a good time to stop and take a look. It is worth investing some time in reviewing if you are meeting your planned objectives and goals. You don’t want to waste the next 6 months just because you could not spare a couple of hours mid year.

Therefore take some time to check year-to-date highs, lows, the planned, the unexpected, the wins and the losses.

Potential Assessment Questions.
Perhaps the following questions may help with the assessment:

• Are we meeting budget?


• If yes, why, if no, why not?


• What have been our highs?


• What should we do more of to ensure we have more highs in the second half of the year?


• What have been our lows?


• What can we do to change this?


• How is our customer feedback process?


• Is it working for us?


• Is it working for our customers?


• When we get feedback where we know we need to make some changes, do we make the relevant changes?


• What staffing challenges have occurred so far?


• How did we handle them?


• Are we engaging our staff?


• What can we do to engage them more?


• What are our plans for the next 6 months?


• Are our staff aware of our plans?


• If yes, great, if no what are we going to do to ensure we are all working towards the same goal?

Don’t feel overwhelmed
The questions can go on and on don’t feel overwhelmed, just take some time to review you don’t want to waste the next six months.

Speak to Your Accountant
Even if the focus is specifically financial, remember it is important to speak to your accountant prior to the end of the financial year so any potential tax savings can be implemented. Don’t miss out on some great tax savings just because you could not spare a couple of hours for a meeting. I know my 1 hour meeting with my financial adviser saved me $4,000.00 in taxation. That meeting was well worth my investment of TIME.

About Us

LifeStyle Refocus is a Melbourne based personal assistant, corporate concierge and lifestyle management consultancy. They are all about saving you TIME. By taking care of your “to do” or “wish list” so you can spend time doing the things that are truly important to you. For more information go to www.lifestylerefocus.com.au or contact Silvana on 0417 595 744 or Michele on 0437 311 802.

Not-to-do lists

Lists, lists, lists I love them. I have shopping lists, weekly menu list, 2009 goals list, action items list, to-do list, birthday list, presents list, cleaning my house list and it goes on. The problem with all the lists is knowing what to do first so the idea when presented to me of a “not-to-do" list sounded sensational.

Author Michael LeBoeuf recommended the following for the not-to-do list:

• All low-priority items, unless you have successfully completed all your high-priority items.


• Anything you could reasonably delegate to someone else.


• Demands on your time from others that are either thoughtless or inappropriate.


• Any errand that, if ignored, will have minimal consequences.


• Anything you might have done for someone else that the person should be doing for himself or herself.
  

Wow – what a great idea. Think of the time you will save by not doing things. It will allow you to focus on getting the priority items done.

About Us

LifeStyle Refocus is a Melbourne based personal assistant, corporate concierge and lifestyle management consultancy. They are all about saving you TIME. By taking care of your “to do” or “wish list” so you can spend time doing the things that are truly important to you. For more information go to www.lifestylerefocus.com.au or contact Silvana on 0417 595 744 or Michele on 0437 311 802.

Office Organising Tips [Part 4]

Conquer Your Filing
In an idea office environment we should be able to find anything that we need the instant we need it. So why is it that we can not always do this? The answer is in whether we have invested the time to establish a filing system that we understand. It is easy to file items however the objective of filing is to find the filed items quickly.

By creating a filing system where we can retrieve documents when we need to find them we can save ourselves hours a day.

Steps to conquer your filing.

Purge what you do not need!

Put like items together in broad categories such as a main category, then a sub-category. For example, the main category is financial, sub-categories include bank accounts, shares, cash flow, profit and loss etc.

Keep a file index [a master list of file names].

Always check your file index prior to creating a new file or when deciding where to put new documents.

Keep the most recent papers in the front of the file. When you open the file the most current information will be on top.

Set up new files when you need then, this way the paper is dealt with and you have completed your task. It only takes a couple of minutes to keep everything in its place!

Create a filing system for your electronic documents that mirrors the system you have for your paper documents.

Remember . . .
Throw out papers you do not need. The 80/20 principle applies to filing as well. We only refer to approx 20% of the documents that we keep filed. So next time before you spend the time filing a document ask yourself whether you really need to keep it. If the answer is yes, ask yourself whether you are placing it in the most logical spot to find it when you do need it.

About Us

LifeStyle Refocus is a Melbourne based personal assistant, corporate concierge and lifestyle management consultancy. They are all about saving you TIME. By taking care of your “to do” or “wish list” so you can spend time doing the things that are truly important to you. For more information go to

www.lifestylerefocus.com.au or contact Silvana on 0417 595 744 or Michele on 0437 311 802.

Office Organising Tips [Part 3]

Tips to Save You Time when you Communicate
Everyday at work we communicate too many people such as colleagues, clients and suppliers. We communicate in many different ways such as email, letter, quotation, telephone, verbal and non-verbal. Just as taming your desk saves you time so does clear communication.

Phone call
Before making a phone call take the time to write down the points you wish to discuss. Ensure the person you are talking to has the time to speak to you before you even commence your discussion, this way they will be fully focused on the conversation and you will both save time by not having to cut the conversation short and then have to repeat the conversation later on.

Follow up
If you need to follow up on something after your discussion make a note into your diary immediately so you know when you have to follow up by. This serves three purposes, firstly it will not be forgotten, secondly, it frees your head space to focus on other work and thirdly, your colleagues, clients, suppliers etc know that you are a person of your word and always follow up on what was agreed. This in turn, ensures that they will follow up with you as they know you have made a note of the discussion outcome.

Leaving a message
When leaving a message whether it is voicemail or with another staff member or even sending an email, be clear about what you are expecting from the other person including when, where and how. This way a full response can be provided back to you, even if they can not reach you directly.

Just a few small improvements every week will add up to a great deal of time saving over a year which allows you to be more productive.

About Us
LifeStyle Refocus is a Melbourne based personal assistant, corporate concierge and lifestyle management consultancy. They are all about saving you TIME. By taking care of your “to do” or “wish list” so you can spend time doing the things that are truly important to you. For more information go to www.lifestylerefocus.com.au or contact Silvana on 0417 595 744 or Michele on 0437 311 802.

Are You Really Saving By Cutting Back?

Recession, tighten our belts, cut backs, retrenchment and ‘batten down the hatches’. This is what we constantly hear and read in the media about businesses and the year ahead.

Does this mean we should all live in fear of loosing our jobs, expect prices to sky rocket and escape somewhere else? Does it mean we need to stop living the great Australian way of life and start sacrificing our leisure activities, cut back on the kids after school activities and save every spare cent? All this, whilst we work extra hours so our employer sees us as dedicated and for no extra remuneration.

Hang on a minute – we all deserve more respect than this in our jobs. Remember good people are hard to come by in any economic time. Isn’t the company’s best asset its employees? If businesses start loosing key people in their business where are we really heading?

Have we forgotten the investment that has already been made into the staff - recruiting, training, empowering and nurturing them? Our employees have years of knowledge and understanding of the business that can’t be documented and passed onto the next person. Now that the times are getting tougher is it not always the right decision to retrench or cut back on company benefits?

What should we be doing?
Michele and Silvana are the directors from LifeStyle Refocus; a Melbourne based Lifestyle Management Company. They recommend that we should still be looking after our employees so they don’t become disgruntled due to company cut backs. Investing in staff and looking after them is crucial in any economic time.

LifeStyle Refocus works with businesses in Melbourne helping give employees real work/life balance while still getting maximum productivity from staff. Silvana quotes “it is usually the small things we do for an employee that keeps them happy and content in their jobs – it is not always about monitory rewards”

We all appreciate being acknowledged and thanked for our efforts. Whilst at Christmas time our tradition is to do this on an individual basis, it is important to thank staff for their contributions on an on-going basis and as a team. Although economic times are tougher, employees still need to be acknowledged in some way so they don’t feel the need to move on once the market eases up.

LifeStyle Refocus can help businesses look after their staff by offering incentives and rewards. They also offer team building activities which brings employees together for a shared experience which is not only fun, but builds morale and team spirit. All the rewards and incentives are tailored to your business structure and culture.

Michele and Silvana from LifeStyle Refocus are proud of their business which offers staff incentives and rewards. Find out more about Lifestyle Refocus at www.lifestylerefocus.com.au or contact Michele on 0437 311 802 or Silvana 0417 595 744.

Office Organising Tips [Part 2]

Organise Your Desk
What does your desk look like? Are you happy with the way it is set up? Do you even stop and look at your desk and analyse whether it is working for you? Your desk can be a key factor in your productivity.

A cluttered desk can affect you as follows:
§ It can waste your time
§ It occupies space
§ You can lose things
§ Money is wasted on extra office furniture and storage to hold all the extras you are keeping
§ It can affect how others see you
§ It can appear that you are out of control
§ It can be difficult to prioritise your work when you can not find what needs to be done

What to do:
§ Keep only supplies that you need on a daily basis on your desk
§ Ensure the top draw closest to your desk holds your "office tools" that is the stapler, pens, pencils, paper clips. It is close by but not occupying space
§ Create a paper flow system for your incoming documents so they do not accumulate in your in tray
§ Use your in tray for items that have not yet been placed into the paper flow system
§ Avoid looking at document and putting them back into the in tray or on your desk, it is wasting valuable time

The act of maintaining your desk is one step on the way to be more effective and profitable. Remove the clutter so you can focus on the important areas of your business.

About Us
LifeStyle Refocus is a Melbourne based personal assistant, corporate concierge and lifestyle management consultancy. They are all about saving you TIME. By taking care of your “to do” or “wish list” so you can spend time doing the things that are truly important to you. For more information go to www.lifestylerefocus.com.au or contact Silvana on 0417 595 744 or Michele on 0437 311 802.