Month: September 2018

Tuesday At 3pm, I’ll See You Then.

Posted on by aubizconsulting

When is the best time to hold a meeting? Is the early morning sales meeting really productive?

So when is the ideal time to hold a meeting?

Forget about Friday afternoons. Don’t even bother with Monday morning. Try Tuesday at 3pm!

You may think that this time slot is just plucked out of the the air, but studies have actually been done on this topic and this is the golden egg of meeting times. (Appparently!)

Research done by WhenIsGood.net revealed that over 50% of respondents had a Tuesday at 3 pm time slot available for a meeting. In that same study, only 30% had a morning slot available. Interestingly, the same study done five years ago revealed almost the same results.

So why is Tuesday at 3pm the magic time slot?

One theory suggests that Tuesday is best because that is the furthest you can get from the deadlines at the end of the week, without bumping into the missed deadlines from the week before.

Or how about the fact that Tuesday reigns supreme for meetings because people will more often than not take a sneaky Monday or Friday off to create a long weekend and it is far enough away from the end of week productivity sliding scale.

On a more scientific level…..

Circadian rhythms are the physical, mental and behavioral changes that follow a roughly 24-hour cycle. These body rhythms have a dramatic effect on when we are most conducive to any form of concentration required for a productive meeting.

Everyday our bodies go through ebbs and flows in energy and behaviors. Early morning until midday are generally quite productive, but then our bodies quickly lose interest. This is an ideal opportunity to take time out and have lunch. Once we have had time to recuperate, mentally and physically, our bodies quickly attain the same levels of energy as experienced in the morning. So by about 3pm each day, we often find that we feel more productive and willing to engage again.

So why not meet in the morning? Generally speaking, most people like to be able to spend time on their own personal work and plan the rest of the day in the morning. If you do hold meetings first thing, you may run the risk of your attendees not engaging and their minds may be elsewhere.

So… lets meet, shall we say Tuesday 3pm?

Wilkin Group in Adelaide run a number of Business Centres, and have numerous meeting spaces for both existing and new clients.  Out of interest they have done some research regarding meeting times and outcomes.  Wilkin can be contacted on (08) 7071 7071, or info@wilkingroup.com.au  to find out more how they are able to meet your meeting room needs.

 

A Virtual Office Solution Creates TIME…. & EFFICIENCY !!

Posted on by aubizconsulting

This Blog follows on from last week’s when we concluded that for many people WORKING FROM HOME SUCKS.  WE now look in more detail how working from home can … Work.

In this article the words ‘Virtual Office’ are used in the broadest sense, and relates to people working from home  …. or wherever, but linked to the business world through a Business Centre offering Virtual Office Solutions, such as a CBD address, phone answering and meeting room facilities to bring people together as the need arises.

When business calls for flexible work hours, virtual offices create an opportunity for people to work whenever they like from wherever they are.

Virtual Offices allow for reduced commute time, lower technology costs and lower overhead costs (with no lease to pay), which leads to increased productivity, lower overall costs and hence increased profitability.

Benefits for Everyone

Here are seven ways your employees, and your business, can benefit from a virtual office:

1. No commute time.

We’ve found the two or three hours every day that used to be spent getting ready for work and traveling to the office can now be spent as productive time.

2. Employees are easily more active.

Researchers at University of Sydney’s School of Public Health in Australia released a study that found sitting at your desk for more than 11 hours a day increased your risk of death in the next three years by more than 40 percent, regardless of other activity. Interestingly, people working with a virtual office concept naturally move around more as they’re not chained to a desk at an office every day.

3. Flexibility means using less leave days.

Want to have “donuts with dad” in your child’s school class? It’s not a big deal because you can make up the time later. Prefer to work out at lunchtime? No problem—you have a shower in your office now. With flexibility at work the urgent need for a leave day is eliminated.

4. Access to worldwide talent.

Gain a customer in Hong Kong and need someone to be there once a week? That’s no problem if you have a virtual office. Not being tied to just one location means a business can acquire a world-wide presence via a virtual network. Let technology be your slave, rather than the other way around.

5. Less overhead.

There’s no office lease, no utility payments, no furniture  and none of the associated costs that come with having a brick-and-mortar space. All that savings can not only be passed along to clients, or retained as extra profit. There is no limit to the speed that you can grow..

6. Save money on technology.

While BYOT (bring your own technology) started in the school system, it’s quickly made its way into the business world. By working remotely, employees can have the technology they prefer, and they’re responsible for upgrading it when it’s convenient for them. While there are a few cyber risk concerns with not having company-provided technology, that’s fairly easy to manage with a password tool, monitoring and employee training.

7. Productivity increases.

Because you go from monitoring when people arrive to work and when they leave to establishing specific goals, you’ll see an increase in productivity almost immediately. If employees meet or exceed their goals, they keep their jobs. If they don’t, you’ll quickly see that—and be able to weed them out—because no one is around to save them. Letting employees work remotely should also decrease turnover because people are generally happier to be able to do their jobs and not have to deal with the drama that comes along with putting a bunch of people in an office together.

While the virtual office doesn’t work for every business—many companies need people together in one location to get work accomplished—in those businesses where technology truly allows you to work from anywhere, a virtual office offers a strong alternative to a traditional office environment.

Don Will is the MD of Wilkin Group, which has a number of Business Centres which have offered Virtual Office Solutions for over a decade, and hence understands the changing nature of workspaces.

Wilkin Group can be contacted at info@wilkingroup.com.au or +618 7071 7071.

Avoiding The Afternoon Energy Cliff

Posted on by aubizconsulting

We’ve all experienced the ‘Afternoon Energy Cliff’, when all of a sudden it feels like you have hit a brick wall and even the simplest work related task seems insurmountable. People generally fall off the cliff during the mid-afternoon, around 3pm, as the energy from their lunch meals wears off and they naturally start to fatigue as the day drags on. As Steven Covey put it so well with his ‘Sharpen the Saw’ analogy, rather than trying to battle through this state everyday, it is much more productive to make some small tweaks to your workday routine to renew and re-energise yourself in order to get the most out of the last few hours of the workday.

Take A Walk

To combat afternoon slumps in enthusiasm and focus, take a walk during your lunch hour. Studies have found that even a gentle stroll at lunchtime can boost people’s mood & ability to handle stress and heavy workloads in the afternoon. Beyond helping to clear headspace and getting some air into your lungs, walking also provides an opportunity to interact with co-workers in a social setting outside of the office environment – which can be beneficial in improving teamwork and collaboration. A walk can be just as productive when everything gets too much in the afternoon. As little as 10 minutes away from your desk, out in the sunshine and fresh air can set you up for the rest of the day.

Eat Right

During a busy workday, reaching for an unhealthy snack can appear to be the easiest option when your stomach starts to rumble. However, the fuel that you put into your body can have a huge impact on your afternoon productivity. Sugary soft drinks, sweet biscuits or a chocolate bar may give you a quick energy hit, but this will quickly wear off and you will be right back where you started soon after. By carefully selecting your afternoon snack you can give yourself the boost you need and the best chance to power through to the end of the day. Bananas, berries and nuts are great snack alternatives which can be just as convenient as their sugar laden cousins.

Schedule Work Around The Waves

Within each of our jobs, we have tasks which we really enjoy and energise us and those tasks which we need to complete but can we find real drag. How you schedule your daily tasks can have a huge impact on your energy levels. If you leave tasks which you consider to be mundane until the afternoon when your energy starts to flag, even the simplest task can seem all too hard. Alternatively, if you schedule something which you really enjoy for this time it can really assist to keep you engaged and on the ball. A little bit of planning at the start of the day can really help to match the timing of work with your energy cycles.

While none of these small tweaks appear groundbreaking, they can each make a huge difference to how you make it through the day. With a little bit of pre-planning you can avoid the Afternoon Energy Cliff and power through the day knocking things off your to do list.

What other tricks do you use to help fight through the afternoon as your energy starts to wane? Feel free to write a comment to share your tips.

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