BlackTie: Grow(th), Stress, and Strategy

People, everyday, search for the perfect balance between work, play, family, and coffee...okay, maybe not coffee. Today, this search becomes even more strenuous as more and more people are working remotely from home. While people may enjoy more free time while working from home, they also may find themselves fighting between work life and their home life. I've worked from home for years, enjoying the freedom but also fighting to constant urge to hit the office for a little more work when I should be at home. Here's some tips that I've used to keep myself sane and making the most of my home office.

Separation

This rule, in a way, encapsulates all the rest. Make sure you have an office or space that is designated just for work. I had my office in the bedroom for a while, and it nearly killed me. Be sure to have a separate space that you can leave and enjoy the rest of your life away from. If you're low on space, creating a little cubicle in your living room might be an option--while possibly tacky, not being able to escape the pile of work can be more scary than losing living room of the year award.

Keep solid hours

Just because you work from home doesn't mean that your work hours are now all day long. Most days I work 9:00 to 5:00 just like someone in a normal office environment might. I do usually grab a couple of hours in the morning and several in the evening, but I'm single and don't have a family to worry about--a blessing for now. Remember that just because your office is in your home, you do still need office hours. There is one thing you can count on, I probably will not answer my work-phone outside of 9:00 to 5:00.

Dress up for the occasion

I dress up for work everyday whether I have a meeting or I'm just sitting in my home office. A tie isn't mandatory, but putting on the slacks and a nice shirt gets me ready for my day. When the day is through, loosening the tie, maybe changing into sweats, gets me ready to relax and enjoy my home.

Block out life

Some people enjoy their office because it gets them out of the house and away from their home worries. I have several white-noise tracks I play that simulate an office, city street, waterfall, etc. I get away from my home and with the help of headphones, I don't hear the television, my dog chasing my cat, and other household noises that take me from my work and back home. When I'm in my office, I'm at work. Don't let life in. It goes back to the first tip: Separate!

Work first, home-life second

I use 30 minute-stints to keep myself efficient. I set a timer for 30 minutes, and don't do anything else but work. I enjoy the fact that I can do laundry and other chores and get work done, but the chores need to come second. I let my chores break up my difficult and monotonous tasks that otherwise would annoy me to the breaking point. 30 minutes of senseless editing followed by a quick break to transfer the laundry. Good deal.

Let people know what's up

When I began working at home in my parents house, my mom needed some training. When I was working, I couldn't take out the trash, water the lawn, do laundry, or feed the goats. Let people know that you are working and are not ignoring them because they're boring, you are ignoring them because you need to work...just like at an office. Would your boss enjoy it if you got up every seven minutes to do a little chore? Let the people in your house know that you need to work, and you'll enjoy them when you're not working.

and lastly...

Find your coffee-shop

Howard Shultz refers to his Starbucks empire as a “third-place” (home, work, and coffee shop). The problem that arises for people who work from home is that they don’t have the first two, they just have one--home and work are one and the same. That makes the need for a second place imperative. Whether you prefer a bench on a hill, a grassy part of a park, or a friend’s backyard, finding a place to either work or play away from your home is fundamental to keeping your sanity. This is so important in my life that I actually allocate the money saved on my home office to my coffee line in my budget.

Working from home is amazing, just don’t let your work get in the way of your home, or your home get in the way of your work.

As a new business owner, I have spent more time reading, studying, and listening than I have sleeping (basically call me a sponge right now). In this learning I’ve seen a recurring theme among all the things I’ve learned.

“Teach them how to get their own darn fish!”

We’ve all heard the saying “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today.  Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime”, but what does that mean today?

Here’s BlackTie’s example:

I’m a planner. I’m working on our 10 year plan for success, and in that the question of employee benefits has come up. I was studying the best way to cover health insurance and the like, then I paused with a question. “Why do people need healthcare?” was my question. While living healthy doesn’t solve all health problems, the fact that living better means less trips to the doctor.

Instead of BlackTie paying for problems, we’re going to pay for preventing problems. BlackTie is going to 1. Pay for gym memberships for all their partners, employees, and contractors working 30+ hours a week along with their families. 2. Allowing employees to leave the office, as long as they are not in a meeting and keeping up with their work, at any time to use the gym, go for a run, ride a bike, or go for walks.

We’re going to promote a healthy lifestyle and decrease healthcare expenses incurred by the people in our company.

How is your company teaching employees to fish? We’d love to hear from you!

Clarity in my words is not something I’m good at. It takes a lot of work to write contracts that specify the details of a project. Learning the need to capture the clarity came from losing money because a client wasn’t expecting a charge and deciding to get rid of the charge because I’m a nice guy.

The main confusion I got from clients were charges from something that they were not expecting to pay for (meetings, project management, etc.). Providing creative and business services usually has these odd little charges that you should charge for, but if you don’t let your clients know that you will, it can hurt your bottom line.

So, next contract you’re writing up, make sure you are clear what charges your client will see on their next invoice. It’s not to nickel and dime your clients, it’s to let them know you’re working hard for them.

• Go for a jog around the block...twice
• Look silly and try and touch your toes
• Find a new favorite espresso drink
• Read a poem (bonus points if you write one)
• Kick back in your chair to some Beethoven

Purposeful relaxation should become part of your day. Just take a break--but plan it.

We work hard--relaxing is imperative to allow your brain to slow down and catch-up to your busy life. Even if you’ve got a busy day, purpose to take three, planned, 15 minute breaks a day. Those 45 minutes invested in yourself will soon show in your work.

So, take a break and enjoy the world around you. 

Let us know how you take a break, we’d love to hear from you!

BlackTie has been flying really quickly. Since sitting down at Laughing Planet to talk about teaming up to now has only been several weeks. ...several very long weeks. So, here's a look at what's going on inside BlackTie

Today at our MondayBreakdown meeting, we talked about our Key Values. These are going to be the core of our business.

• Persistence
• Loyalty/Honesty
• Efficiency
• Professionalism
• Innovation
• Creativity

Taking these, we are working on creating a mission statement that exemplifies these key values. We'll reference back to these with just about every decision we make as a company.

We also took a look at our SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats).

After this meeting I know I felt really encouraged that even though we are a young company with rather young management, we're building our company right. We're excited to work with companies to build up strategies that help propel their business just as our business is.

So right now, our strategy is to pace our flight through procedures that ensure we are building a good foundation. That leads me to a question to you, the reader. What's the foundation of your business? Look at your key values and see how you're following them in your business. It's really a fun thing to do.

Keepig cool...or just not über stressed. During the Monday Breakdown meeting that Phil and I have on Mondays, we talked about how our team of two will work and stay efficient.

We're a new team, always looking for new ideas. If you've got great ideas of how to improve/assess the performace of a team, let us know. We want to hear from you!

Have you heard of Tagwhat? Well if you haven't, it won't be long before that will change. Tagwhat is changing the way that we walk around the world we live in by creating tags to tell the stories that lay beneath our very feet.

Why is this exciting? Well, if you're a business owner in the area around Corvallis (and beyond, we're just starting in Corvallis) you have an opportunity to get a tag created. Do you have a hidden story behind how your famous waffles are made? What about the fallout-shelter that used to be in the basement of your building? Tagwhat is the place to tell your story, and we're here to do it.

Black Tie + Tagwhat, this is exciting.

So keep your eyes and ears up, we're going to be rolling out details soon.

We're new, but we're starting strong!

Black Tie might be new, you might not know who we are, but in the coming weeks both my partner in crime business are going to be rolling out a brilliant branding strategy for you to enjoy.

For the logo we went with a simple look. The entire colour scheme will be rolled out shortly (along with our website which is in its final stages).

We're a young company, we enjoy a little fun. These are going to be the face of our new business cards.