By Behind the Brands
Whether you’re running a large business, an aspiring mumpreneur, work from home or in an office on the 20th floor of a skyscraper in the city – you’re busy. This applies to both personal life and business and we speak for every working woman when we say – we’re sick of being told we’re hard to get in contact with.
Are there days where we don’t answer calls, never check our voicemail, read a message and forget to reply or have an email sitting in our inbox waiting for a reply?…HELL YES!
So, here are some tips to stop the countless follow up calls, texts and emails that we’re all guilty of receiving.
- Let people know what days you do and don’t work. If you don’t work the usual Mon – Fri 9-5 role (if there is anyone still doing this) educate your clients, staff, family and friends on when you’re at work and when you’re at home. This should help filter out some of the calls you get from your friend wanting to chat on a work day and stop clients from expecting to hear from you immediately on a day your not “in the office”.
- Turn your phone off silent at certain times of the day. This is a tricky one as when you’re in and out of meetings you can forget but set time during the day to hear your phone ring so you are more aware of who is calling and are more likely to answer.
- Set an out of office reply on your emails. If you don’t answer emails immediately then set up an automated email reply advising when they may hear from you – this can work well if you’re under the pump and taking a little longer to reply than usual.
- Organise yourself well in advance. Plan meetings, catch-ups with friends, play dates for the kids, phone calls etc in advance and schedule the time out in your diary. Once you prioritise everything and lock in the days and times, the follow-ups ease off!
Sometimes, the above it just hard to do and you are just hard to get hold of. Let people know this and the good ones will always understand that once things settle down you will be back to your organised, well-planned self.
