Time does not wait for anyone & is a great equalizer as it provides us all with the same twenty-four hours to use in whatever way we may deem fit. The subsequent consequence of the current lock-down is that majority of the world’s working population is now working from home, thereby giving us even more free time within the stipulated twenty-four hours, to prepare for what I feel will be the biggest business opportunity of at least my life time.
Yes, businesses large & small are hurting, people are losing their jobs with more cuts on the cards it is easy to get caught up in fear of a doom’s day scenario. That said, I firmly believe that this crisis will pass just like many before it have and what will determine your success personally or that of your business depends on how you spend your valuable time during this period of opportunity.
Here are the things that I continue to do on a daily basis to ensure personal growth and to make sure that my business comes out stronger and is ready to take advantage of the opportunities that have already started presenting themselves.
1) Workout daily: Working out not only helps your body, it does wonders for your brain too! When you work out, your body releases chemicals called endorphins. These chemicals react with your brain, help reduce pain, depression along with boosting self-esteem and quality sleep. Don’t know what to do, log onto you tube and check out thousands of channels on home workouts.
2) Dress up & show up to work: Yes, we can get lazy and lethargic while working from home. I personally am showered and ready for work by 8:30 AM every day Monday to Saturday. Keeping with the routine has helped my productivity enormously, in fact I have found that I am lot more productive at home at times than at office! Dressing up for work is one part of this, but many of you might be wondering where do we go after dressing up!? Well designate your work place within your home, and show up there every morning on time without fail. It could be you dining table, your bathroom, your balcony. It does not matter, as long as it’s not your bed!
3) Set boundaries at home: It becomes easy to be distracted at home. You have your wife/husband or girlfriend/boyfriend, kids, parents, friends calling and of course Netflix all there, ever ready to consume your time! Communicate with all parties concerned and make it clear that you are at work and like any other normal working day you require to quarantine yourself at home and not be disturbed. This I found will work wonders for your relationship! Too much intimacy breeds contempt and setting this time aside for yourself is important to maintain sanity at home!
4) Communicate, communicate & communicate: Whether you are business owner or an employee working for a business, in these times it becomes imperative that you communicate with your employees, the team that you are in charge of and your boss on a much more frequent basis than before. Check up on them to see how they are doing, share an article or piece of new that you read and found interesting with them. (Please don’t share depressing news about corona, there is enough of that going around). Something that I do frequently is, share industry specific news with my comments along with some goofy videos, self-help books/apps and learning material over our whatsapp company groups. Of course, you would need to keep in mind the choice of language (Hindi/English or any other regional language depending on where you are located) you use while communicating depending on the level of employee that you are communicating with.
5) Current, potential clients & vendors: This ties in with the point above; communication! Don’t forget about your clients and vendors in these times. Communicate via e-mail weekly, ask them how things are at their end and let them know if there is something that you feel you can help them with. If you are in sector that supports critical goods & services, let them know that you are there for them in these trying times and your team is ready to assist as and when the requirement arises. Let them know of the steps that you are taking to be business ready (Getting your passes to operate in place etc.) Vendors that supply to you, rely on you to a great extent, so don’t forget them in these challenging times and don’t stop answering their phones because you owe them money. Use this opportunity to strengthen your bond with them by communicating with them openly and honestly. Let them know that these are hard times, but we will make it through them together and appreciate them for their understanding. If you are in a position to clear off their dues, even partly, you should do so as it will go a long way in cementing your relationship. This is also a time for you to target potential clients that either refused your services previously or those you are currently wooing. Drop them a mail asking them how they are doing, send them information related to their industry and let them know that you are there to assist them when their business opens up. If you feel that you can help the in any way, offer it in your mail. A line of caution in this regard, make sure that you do this with right intent, this is not time to sell, rather a time to build long-term relationships based on genuine concern.
6) Find work, if you don’t have any: There are thousands of things that you can do to improve yourself besides chatting with friends and watching TV! From free learning classes online on any subject that is of interest to you to upgrading your personal and business skills. I too find myself at times wondering what to do. What has helped me is preparing a list of personal and professional goals that I want to accomplish. For example, one of my goals is to write more, another is to catch-up on reading and a third is to learn more about social media marketing and implement my learnings. As a business owner, there are times that I struggle to find work for my employees to do, so I create work for them. For example, if I am planning to write about a particular subject matter I would outsource some of the research to them. I also send them articles relating to our industry and ask their opinion on it. Recently we started the twenty-one-day challenge, where everyone in our team does twenty-one push-ups, twenty-one squats, twenty-one sit ups & shares it on a specially created group!
All of this, of course, requires self-discipline and constant communication with yourself to keep on track and remain focused on the tasks at hand. I started off this piece by mentioning that in my opinion this period will provides the biggest opportunity of at least my life time & I intend to make the most of it by continuously improving myself on a day in and day out basis and by ensuring that my team and business remain ready to grab the bull by the horns once it takes off!
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best & always be ready for action!