Taking breaks might seem counterproductive in the hustle and bustle of our work lives. However, stepping away from your desk is essential for maintaining productivity and overall well-being. Let’s explore why taking breaks is so powerful and how it can benefit you and your workplace.
 
Boosting Productivity
Taking regular breaks can significantly boost your productivity. When you work for extended periods without a break, your focus and efficiency can diminish. Short, frequent breaks help to refresh your mind, prevent fatigue, and maintain a high level of performance throughout the day. By allowing your brain to rest, you return to your tasks with renewed energy and sharper concentration.
 
Enhancing Creativity
Breaks are not just about resting; they can also foster creativity. Stepping away from your work allows your mind to wander and explore new ideas. Often, great ideas come when you're not actively focusing on a problem. Walking, chatting with a colleague, or simply relaxing can provide the mental space needed for innovative thinking and problem-solving.
 
Improving Physical Health
Sitting for prolonged periods can negatively affect your physical health. Regular breaks encourage you to move around, stretch, and improve your circulation. This can help prevent issues like back pain, eye strain, and other physical discomforts associated with long hours at a desk. Incorporating short stretches or a quick walk into your break routine can make a big difference in your physical well-being.
 
Reducing Stress and Preventing Burnout
Constant work without breaks can lead to high-stress levels and, eventually, burnout. Taking regular breaks helps to manage stress by giving you time to relax and recharge. It allows you to step back from work pressures, clear your mind, and return with a more positive and composed attitude. This balance is crucial for maintaining long-term mental health and job satisfaction.
 
Promoting Work-Life Balance
In today's connected world, it’s easy to blur the lines between work and personal life. Taking breaks helps to establish a healthier work-life balance. By setting boundaries and ensuring you take time away from work, you can enjoy your personal time more fully and return to work with a clearer, more focused mindset. This balance is essential for both personal happiness and professional success.
 
Tips for Effective Breaks
To make the most of your breaks, consider the following tips:
 
1. Schedule Breaks: Plan your breaks into your daily schedule to ensure you take them regularly. The Pomodoro Technique, which involves working for 25 minutes and then taking a 5-minute break, is a popular method.
  
2. Get Moving: Use your break time to move around. Take a walk, stretch, or do a quick workout to refresh your body and mind.
 
3. Disconnect: Take breaks from screens. Rest your eyes and engage in activities that don’t involve digital devices.
 
4. Socialise: Use breaks to connect with colleagues. A friendly chat can boost your mood and help build a positive work environment.
 
5. Practice Mindfulness: Engage in mindfulness or meditation during your breaks to reduce stress and improve focus.
 
Taking breaks is a powerful tool for enhancing productivity, creativity, and overall well-being. By incorporating regular breaks into your workday, you can maintain high performance, reduce stress, and enjoy better physical and mental health. Remember, breaks are not a luxury—they are necessary for a healthy and productive work life.
 
So, next time you feel overwhelmed or fatigued, take a break. Your body and mind will thank you.

​Whether you're a small business owner or an employee, well-being at work is crucial for productivity and success. However, finding the time and energy to focus on yourself can be challenging amid numerous responsibilities. This blog post provides tips to help you achieve well-being at work, no matter your role!
 
Recognising the Need for a Break: Wellbeing at work (and in your personal life) is vital. If you run a small business or are part of a team, you might feel indispensable to the business's success and profitability. How often have you tried to work when you weren't feeling well or found yourself regularly working evenings and weekends to complete tasks? Although it may seem necessary, working while unwell often leads to mistakes and longer task completion times.
 
So, how can you improve your well-being at work? Here are some tips:
 
1. Take Regular Breaks
Even a few minutes can make a difference. Get up, walk around, stretch, and get some fresh air if possible. Use an app like Pomodoro to regularly remind you to take short and long breaks.
 
2. Make Time for Yourself Outside of Work
Engage in activities that make you happy and recharge your batteries. Whether it's taking a yoga class, going for a run, or reading your favourite book, find time for yourself.
 
3. Eat Healthily and Stay Hydrated
Fuel your body with nutritious food and plenty of water throughout the day. A healthy diet can significantly impact your energy levels and overall well-being.
 
4. Create a Positive Work Environment
A positive workspace can boost your mood and productivity. Declutter your desk, decorate with items that make you smile, or have a meaningful conversation with a colleague about something you're passionate about.
 
5. Manage Stress Levels
Be mindful of your stress and take action to reduce it. Techniques like meditation, deep breathing exercises, journaling, or other relaxation methods can help you stay calm and focused.
 
Take Things One Day at a Time…
 
By following these tips, you can start your journey towards achieving well-being at work. Remember, progress takes time and patience. Rome wasn't built in a day, nor is a healthy workplace environment! Creating lasting change requires effort, but it can help you stay happy, healthy, and productive at work, ultimately helping you avoid burnout—complete exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged emotional, physical, and mental stress.
 
Taking care of yourself should be a top business priority, right alongside handling customer inquiries, managing invoices and expenses, and marketing. Set aside time this week to focus on your well-being. By prioritising self-care, you'll be better equipped to handle the demands of your business and maintain a balanced, fulfilling work life.

Do you feel like you're in a balancing act?
I think it’s fair to say that pursuing business success often takes a heavy toll on personal wellbeing. Virtual work environments have brought about unprecedented flexibility and blurred the lines between professional and personal life. Small business owners, in particular, find themselves in a constant balancing act, juggling work-life balance – often to the detriment of their health and wellbeing.

So how can we try to prioritise wellbeing in our own working lives?
The first step in prioritising wellbeing is acknowledging the struggle. Small business owners often wear multiple hats, from managing finances and operations to marketing and customer service. Recognising the weight of these responsibilities is essential. The virtual world provides opportunities for flexibility and can also contribute to feelings of isolation and burnout. By acknowledging these challenges, business owners can begin the journey towards a healthier work-life balance, seeking help from external business professionals with specific tasks or streamlining their work with automation and enhanced processes.

Establish boundaries
Another significant challenge when running your own small business is the need for physical boundaries between work and personal life. Small business owners often find themselves answering emails late into the night or working on weekends. Establishing clear boundaries is a fundamental aspect of prioritising wellbeing. This includes defining specific work hours, designating a workspace, and communicating these boundaries to colleagues, clients, and family members. Small business owners can foster a healthier balance by creating distinct compartments for work and personal life.

Nurture physical and mental health
In the pursuit of business success, self-care is often sacrificed. However, neglecting physical and mental health can harm overall well-being. Small business owners must prioritise self-care practices, whether regular exercise, meditation, or taking short breaks to recharge. These practices contribute to physical health and enhance mental resilience, allowing business owners to navigate challenges with clarity and focus. 

Build your support system
The virtual world can be isolating, and small business owners may feel the weight of their responsibilities in solitude. Building a support system is crucial for prioritising wellbeing. This can include networking with fellow business owners, joining virtual communities, or seeking mentorship. The exchange of experiences and insights within a supportive community can alleviate the sense of isolation and provide valuable perspectives on managing the challenges of small business ownership. 

Tools and apps to alleviate stress
Ironically, technology, which is often a source of stress, can also be leveraged for the well-being of everyone, including small business owners. Small business owners can explore apps and tools to promote mindfulness, track sleep patterns, or manage stress. Incorporating technology focusing on well-being can be a proactive step in maintaining a healthy work-life balance in the virtual world.

Taking breaks is Essential!
One final piece of advice - business owners must recognise is the importance of taking breaks without guilt! Whether it's a short walk, a coffee break, or a moment of quiet reflection, breaks are essential for recharging and maintaining focus. Understanding that breaks contribute to, rather than detract from, productivity is a mindset shift crucial for well-being.

Running your own small business is hard enough without overwhelming feelings of stress, exhaustion and burnout, so please take care of yourselves! Your business relies on you being at the top of your game, so take time to relax, recharge and look after your health and wellbeing.

Small business owners often neglect the importance of taking breaks while juggling the various responsibilities of running a business. They tend to believe that taking a break means less productivity and less profit. However, research has shown that taking regular breaks at work can increase productivity and wellbeing. This blog post will explore the power of taking breaks at work and the benefits that they bring to small business owners.

Increased Productivity
Studies have indicated that taking regular breaks enhances productivity. Breaks help to reduce stress levels and increase focus. Taking breaks also boosts creativity and innovation. When you take a break, your mind has a chance to recharge, allowing you to come back to work with a clear head and fresh ideas. As a small business owner, your life is always full of competing demands, and it can be challenging to give your best to each task. However, taking a break can help you increase productivity, boost efficiency, and make better decisions.

Maintaining Good Health
Running a small business can be physically and emotionally demanding. If you neglect to take time off, it can lead to burnout, which can have a devastating impact on your health. Taking a break can help reduce the risk of depression and anxiety, as well as work-related injuries such as eye strain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and back pain. Breaks can also help you to maintain a healthy lifestyle by allowing you to incorporate exercise or meditation into your daily routine.

Morale Boost
Taking breaks can also be a morale boost for you, as a small business owner, and your employees. In a busy work environment, it's essential to take time out to build relationships with your team. You could plan team building activities or discuss non-work-related topics. This type of break can help to foster relationships, encourage open communication, and improve morale. Your employees will feel valued, which can lead to higher job satisfaction and retention.

Improved Focus
Taking a break can help improve focus, which can be crucial for small business owners. Breaks help to combat decision fatigue, which tends to set in after making numerous decisions in a short time. The brain can become fatigued when faced with too many decisions, and taking a break can help you to regain focus, prevent decision-making errors and enhance your decision-making processes.

Breaks Promote Creativity
Breaks can also stimulate creativity, which is critical for small business owners. Creativity brings innovation, which helps businesses to grow and maintain a competitive edge. Taking breaks can be an opportunity to read a book, indulge in a creative hobby, or even take a nap. Engaging in a new activity during a break can spark creativity and inspire new ideas.
​
Rather than wasting your precious time, breaks can actually help to increase productivity, maintain good health, boost morale, improve focus and stimulate creativity. Small business owners who incorporate regular breaks into their workday are more likely to be successful, happy, and healthy. While it might seem counterproductive, taking breaks gives you the opportunity to refresh and recharge, allowing you to get the most out of your day. So, the next time you are tempted to skip a break, remember that taking a break isn't a waste of time, it's a boost to your wellbeing and your business's productivity.

If you're a small business owner or an employee of a small business, you know that wellbeing at work is essential for productivity and success. However, it can be difficult to find the time and energy to focus on yourself when there are so many other things to worry about. In this blog post, we will discuss some tips for achieving well-being at work, no matter what your role may be!

Do you need a break?
Wellbeing at work (and in your personal life!) is so important. Whether you run a small business or are part of a team, it can often feel as though you are relied upon utterly for the success and profitability of the business. How many times have you tried to work when you weren't feeling well or found yourself regularly working evenings and weekends to try and complete tasks? Although it always seems like a good idea, it's much easier to find yourself making mistakes, or taking far longer to complete simple tasks when you are feeling unwell.

So what can you do to improve your wellbeing at work? Here are a few tips:
- Take regular breaks, even if it's just for a few minutes. Get up and walk around, stretch, and get some fresh air if you can.  Use an app like Pomodoro to help remind you to have a short / long break.
 
- Make time for yourself outside of work. Whether it's taking a yoga class, going for a run, or just reading your favourite book, do something that makes you happy and recharges your batteries.
 
- Eat healthily and stay hydrated! It's so important to fuel your body with nutritious food and plenty of water throughout the day.
 
- Create a positive work environment for yourself and others. This might mean decluttering your desk, decorating your workspace with things that make you smile, or simply having a conversation with a colleague about something you're both passionate about.
 
- Be mindful of your stress levels and take action to reduce them. This could involve meditation, deep breathing exercises, journaling, or anything else that helps you to relax.

Progress - One Day at a Time
By following these tips, you can start on the path to achieving wellbeing at work! Remember, it's important to take things one day at a time and be patient with yourself. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is a healthy workplace environment! Creating lasting change takes time and effort, but can help you to stay happy, healthy, and productive at work, and could help you to avoid burnout - utter exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged emotional, physical, and mental stress.

Set Aside Time for you
Take care of yourself and set aside some time this week to take care of yourself - it should be right up there on the business priority list alongside dealing with customer enquiries, sorting out invoices and expenses, and marketing.

Do you actually take a break?!
When you run your own business, I know just how hard it can be to take a step back and take a break, whether that’s for a fortnight’s summer break, or a long weekend – it’s hard to switch off knowing that your customers are temporarily unsupported, or that your email inbox is likely to be going crazy in your temporary absence!
 
However, taking a break is incredibly important for your health and wellbeing. We all need to reduce stress and enjoy a change of scenery, spending time with family or friends – or even finding peace and tranquillity with a solo break.  When you run your own business, it can become all-consuming and gradually seep into your downtime, with you working evening and weekends to keep up with customer demand, and this just isn’t sustainable in the long term. Everyone needs a break!!

What if your clients need you?
Unfortunately, just because you have ‘switched off’ it doesn’t mean your customers have! The worst-case scenario whilst you are away would be a customer having a major issue that they can’t fix themselves, resulting in an unhappy client and a mountain of work to come back to and deal with urgently upon your return.  Even if there isn’t a client drama, there’s always the chance that you could miss out on an opportunity for new work with a potential customer whilst you are out of the office.

Consider some cover 
There are solutions to these problems that don’t involve having to take on a full time, permanent member of staff to provide cover.  For example, why not consider temporary holiday cover? Even if it’s just to monitor your emails and calls and ensure that any urgent enquiries are dealt with promptly, whilst customers and potential customers without urgent issues feel as though they are supported, even if their calls/emails aren’t addressed fully until your return from your break.  Even if you do have to deal with urgent queries from a beach in Greece, it’s so much better to have someone else filtering through the ‘urgent’ enquiries, deciding what is a major issue (and what is a trivial one!) and therefore only disturbing your rest and relaxation when something really needs to be done.
 
Ensure your business is in safe hands
This kind of support can prove really useful even when you are in the office, as it gives you further time to focus on all-important customer support and delivery of your high-quality products/services without being sucked into trivial issues which could easily be dealt with by a third party.  It also means that if you need to take a short break for health reasons (due to temporary sickness) that you can rest more comfortably in the knowledge that your business is in safe hands.
 
Having an extra pair of hands in your business at the times when you really need it is so beneficial for many reasons – how could an extra, virtual team member make your life easier?

Do reach out to CC Professional if you’d like more to discuss how we can support you during holidays and at other times.

What is "Burnout"?
You may not recognise burnout until you’re in it. As someone who has suffered burnout I know that, for me, it was as a result of excessive and prolonged stress and overwhelm.

There are many symptoms of burnout but these can can include:

• The feeling of being completely overwhelmed, unable to cope and just exhausted, all the time!
• Suffering physically with headaches and muscle/joint strains
• Your ideal may become the want or need to retreat or give up on everything
• You constantly compare yourself to others and feel like a failure
• You may become over-emotional about everything
• Your personal relationships may start to be impacted.

Realising and accepting that I was suffering from burnout was the first step to getting better and proactively encouraging a better work / life balance for myself.

The good news is that you can do something about burnout - once you're aware of it!
Something that really helped me initially was to consider my thinking style and start to watch for those times when an unhelpful thinking style was impacting on me and my business decisions negatively.

Unhelpful thinking styles
There are a variety of unhelpful thinking styles and most of us will have a combination of a few. Each of these thinking styles can threaten our mental health, depending on whether you can recognise your unhelpful thinking and act to change it to a positive.  For me, unhelpful thinking styles included:

• negative thinking - where you tend to only want or need to see the negative in everything
• brooding - whereby you tend to worry and think about every experience in intricate detail over and over again 
• paranoia - or worrying that you’ll be criticised, exploited or rejected perhaps - not everything is black and white, but perhaps you fail to see a middle ground and it tends to be all or nothing
• or do you catastrophize situations - by magnifying or exaggerating the issue unnecessarily
• or maybe you’re impulsive without much consideration
• or are you a perfectionist, setting yourself ridiculously high standards and are you unable to tolerate failure?

Maybe consider how you think about situations that you find yourself in - as yourself how you maintain perspective and change those negative thoughts into positive ones?

Mind your Language
I found I was saying and thinking negative words/thoughts, which in turn lowered my mood, made me anticipate negative outcomes and made me stressed. By starting to use more positive language, I seemed to feel more hopeful and strong, anticipating better outcomes and just feeling a lot more chilled about things! So one really positive thing I did fairly early on was to proactively consider the language I was using in everyday conversations - I made a real effort to change any negative statements into positive ones, such as:

• ‘I couldn’t do that’ = ‘I can do anything that I put my mind to’
• ‘I’m not good enough’ = I’m a great woman who can do whatever she sets her mind to.’

I even put sticky post-it notes around the house with these phrases on, to reinforce the message and remind myself regularly!

Ways to combat burnout and change unhelpful thinking
I tried a number of ideas to combat burnout and turn things around which I found really helpful:

• Social contact - nature’s antidote to stress!  Invest in close relationships and turn to your friends and family for support
• Try to be more sociable with your coworkers
• Surround yourself with positive people
• Find the right balance and take time off to focus on the parts of your life that bring you joy
• Set boundaries - don’t overextend yourself!
• Set a time each day when you completely disconnect from social media / screens etc.,
• Get plenty of relaxation and sleep
• Exercise regularly
• Reduce sugar and carb intake and enjoy alcohol in moderation
• Ask for HELP!  There are all sorts of great resources out there who can help you - I needed to learn to ask for help and brought qualified, reliable virtual assistants, sub-contractors and business partners onto my team, who could relieve some of the stresses and overwhelm of my workload!
• Recognise each and every positive achievement throughout your day, from the smallest to the largest – they are all worthy of praise!

Don’t allow the negative effects of burnout to spill over into every area of your life. 

Ask yourself when you wake up in the morning – How do I want my day to go today?

*Sources Helpguide.org and thriveprogramme.org

Maybe it’s raining outside, and you are soaked to the skin.  Maybe you’ve just had a difficult telephone conversation with a customer or colleague that has left you wanting to place the waste paper bin over your head and sit quietly in a corner.  Maybe you are having an Excel-Based Nightmare, and are teetering on the brink of picking up your desktop and launching it out of your (closed) office window… whatever it is, we’ve all been there! But try, just for a moment, looking on the bright side – at least your computer isn’t on fire! (Yet…)

Optimism can have a dramatic impact on all aspects of your life – not just work.  By embracing hope, communicating positively, and carrying out work in an effective and positive manner with a ‘can do’ attitude, you may find it easier to problem solve, experience better health, and build up more positive relationships than those who consider themselves to be pessimists:

“Research from Barbara Fredrickson, a Psychology Professor who has written extensively about positivity, found that those who think positive thoughts have a greater capacity to take on board new information.  This then improves a person’s perspective and ability to ‘connect the dots’, enabling them to tackle any problems and obstacles that arise”

Article by Mark Feldman

As well as helping you to think and work more effectively, a ‘can do’ attitude of optimism and positivity makes you more approachable – that is, as long as the ‘can do’ attitude is based on realistic goals and expectations.  By using positive language and suggesting solutions to problems, rather than just saying ‘no’ or ‘I can’t do that’, we are able to build rapport and trust with colleagues and customers.  It is important to remain assertive though! Saying yes to everything, even if there is no chance of you actually being able to complete a task, is only going to result in stress and negativity.  Be honest about what you can realistically achieve, and the timescale for this, in order to come across as trustworthy and dependable – factors just as important as being considered ‘positive’ when you are trying to build up a successful working relationship with a customer or colleague.

According to research, developing a positive attitude in life can also benefit your health and increase your energy levels – another two reasons to look on the bright side of life! According to an article by Elizabeth Scott, M.S., a stress management expert for www.stress.about.com, it has been proven through academic research that optimists and positive thinkers are more productive, enjoy better health, are less weighed down by stress and are generally more successful in life than their pessimistic counterparts.  So take that waste paper bin off your head and take a deep breath – try to shake off that negativity and aim for an afternoon of positive thinking. 

You never know, this could be the start of something positively amazing! 

Summer is here! The sun is shining, birds are singing – it’s the perfect time of year to pull yourself away from your desk and get outside into the great outdoors.  However, for small business owners and self-employed individuals, it can be hard to justify spending time away from an overflowing in-tray and constantly ringing phone!

The Office for National Statistics state that self-employed workers are more likely to work more than 45 hours per week, and the same is probably true for the multi-tasking individuals involved in the day-to-day running of many small businesses too, because if you don’t do it, who else will?  It is so important to take a break though, and for those of you who are a little hesitant, I have collated a few excellent reasons to take time out every now and then:

1)    Regular physical activity – perhaps a walk on your lunch break or a swim several times a week – has been medically proven to have a number of significant health benefits.  The NHS website gives a very long list of potential benefits, including the following:

• up to a 35% reduction in the risk of coronary heart disease and stroke
  
• up to a 50% reduction in the risk of type 2 diabetes
  
• up to a 50% reduction in the risk of colon cancer
  
• up to a 20% reduction in the risk of breast cancer
  
• up to an 83% lower risk of osteoarthritis
  
• up to a 68% lower risk of hip fracture
  
• up to 30% lower risk of falls (among older people)
• up to a 30% lower risk of dementia

Physical activity can really help you to stay healthier for longer, a factor important for everyone, but particularly for those who rely on their good health to enable them to maintain a successful business on a daily basis.

2)    Sunshine boosts levels of serotonin in your system – a chemical typically associated with happiness and feelings of well-being.  Physical activity has also been proven to boost serotonin levels too, so getting out and active in the (occasionally) great summer weather is likely to lift your mood, giving you just the boost you need to tackle the mountain of paperwork that awaits your return to work. There is nothing better when I'm stressed than taking my dog out for an hour's walk - I come back refreshed and rejuvenated.

3)    Social contact is an underrated, but important contributing factor to a healthy body and mind.  For those of us who work on our own, or in a confined office space, it is easy to slip away into our own little world and occasionally get bogged down in the stresses of an isolated working life, something that can impact both your physical and mental health.  Meeting friends and spending time with family – boosting the social contact that is so often missing from our working days – can really help to tackle this.  Any excuse for a relaxing picnic or barbeque is fine by me!

I could go on – there are so many excellent reasons to get out and about every now and then, taking time away from your computer and uncomfortable desk chair! I appreciate that it can be difficult finding the time, but if that is the case, and you could do with a little additional support with your weekly tasks in order to find a little more precious time for you, please don’t hesitate to get in touch: phone CCProfessional Secretarial Services on 07931 783395 to find out exactly we could help you find the perfect work/life balance.

And ENJOY your Summer!