Category: Pamela Ayuso

Your Physical Workspace: How to be Organized, Efficient, and Comfortable

Pamela Ayuso May 20, 2019

The space we inhabit affects us more than we might imagine. It is the place where our best ideas and work come to fruition. It is also the place where we spend most of our waking hours. If we don’t feel comfortable, we may not be as productive as we would otherwise be. At the very least, we owe it to ourselves to work in an environment that brings out the best in us and in which we are at ease.

This space may not just be in your office– it can also be at home. Both at home and in the office, you can make that space work for you and practical for the work you want to accomplish. At the office, you may have less control over the matter, since you’ve probably been assigned a specific location. Although its physical location might not be your choice, you can always make your work area yours by taking some simple actions.

The Greatest Impact on our Limited Time

Pamela Ayuso May 13, 2019

We juggle numerous tasks, day in and day out. The mountain of work can often seem to grow every day and the amount of work we need to do never seems to end. It is at times like these when it’s important to question the quality of the work we are doing. There are days when we may complete 20 different to-do list items, but what have we accomplished in the grander picture?

The to-do list is inevitable and quite powerful. It is the means through which our goals can become a reality, but it can also become a problem when it starts having a life of its own and controlling our lives. Instead, you can ask yourself the following questions at the beginning of each day:

What matters the most today?
What will have the greatest impact?
What is crucial today?

This Is How a Virtual Assistant Can Enhance Your Business

Pamela Ayuso May 6, 2019

If you are drowning in your to-do list, try working with a virtual assistant. Finding and working with one can save you hours of time and effort. A virtual assistant can help you tackle your to-do list in no time at all, especially those tasks on your list that can be completed by anyone. He or she will help you get out from under the avalanche of work. When you are freer, your assistant can also help you do the things you wanted to do but never had the time to complete. Having someone you can rely on to do all the undone work can change your professional life.

Luckily, finding a virtual assistant today is easier than ever. Thanks to the internet, there are multiple sites where you can connect with the right assistant for you. My favorite site is Upwork, where you can find highly rated freelancers for every budget, based around the world. You can also post a job on Twitter, Craigslist, or Zirtual, a portal dedicated to helping professionals find virtual assistants for both office and personal work.

How to Streamline Project Management and Effectiveness

Pamela Ayuso April 29, 2019

One mechanism that we have found works well for following up on and managing complex projects at our company, Celaque, is holding recurring meetings. We meet every week or every two weeks to go over a set agenda. The person who leads the meetings establishes the agenda. We make major decisions as a group and guide the projects forward. Since starting these meetings, we have found we can make better choices and move faster because there is an added accountability to the group.

Meetings have been overscheduled and can even be negative if not appropriately deployed because they can waste a lot of time. On the other hand, they can also be very powerful if used for the right kinds of reasons. In the case of committee-type groups that come together to work on projects, they are very impactful. Multifaceted areas or plans often require input from numerous points of view because there are so many variables to take into consideration. A person may look at the work from one perspective, but another person may view it from a different one. The best product will, therefore, emerge.

Your Business and New Employees: How to Adjust Your Processes

Pamela Ayuso April 22, 2019

The ultimate benefit of processes is that they are adaptable. They are living organisms that can be modified as the company grows or changes. Because a structure with preexisting processes is already in place, it is easier to adjust, add, or remove responsibilities as the team grows and evolves.

When a new person joins your company, the current processes can provide the foundation from which you and the team can see what work is being done now and how it can be modified. From there, it is easy to reduce the workload for other members of the team, if necessary, and to assign new responsibilities.

How to Set Up Your Peer Coaching Group for Success

Pamela Ayuso April 15, 2019

Peer coaching groups are one of the most useful mechanisms you can design for your career. Growing a career/business is complex, and it is much easier to face challenges with others who are in the same boat as you. In a peer coaching group, you and a group of professionals can come together to listen, learn, and share your career paths and projects.

During these meetings, the group members discuss goals, challenges, or simply what is happening in their professional lives. In between sessions, you’ll have a group of people you can rely on for support during the projects you are embarking on.

You may not be in a location where a group is readily available, so you may have to set one up yourself. In any case, to have the greatest impact on your professional life, it’s imperative to make sure your peer group is the right one for you.

Knowing How to Learn from Failed Projects in Your Business

Pamela Ayuso April 8, 2019

Much of innovation is about experimentation and trial and error. With that, often comes failure: something that usually stops us from exploring in the first place. The immediate effects aren’t pleasant, as failure comes with wasted time and effort and disappointment. If we learn to fail gracefully, however, and learn from our errors, we will be able to grow. Growth comes along with much inevitable failure.

Failure can at times be very apparent, while other times it is less so. The first step in accepting failure is to know when a project/idea is officially over. If something has failed, the best thing to do is recognize the project as a missed opportunity and move on. Let go of the past and move on. From there, learn from it. Try to look at the missed opportunity from a distance and learn. Finally, don’t let this stop you and your teams’ creativity. Keep going, keep ideating. The quicker you can move through this cycle, the more you and your business will be able to grow.

Problem Solving for the Office and Your Personal Life

Pamela Ayuso April 1, 2019

We spend most of the day at work, solving problems on a daily basis. What we often forget is that many of the tools for problem solving that we use at work can be very useful for our personal lives as well.

Problem solving for life follows a similar process to that in business. Our personal and professional lives are always busy, and sometimes we don’t give our personal difficulties the same type of attentiveness we give to our business problems. It is in the personal sphere, though, where we can have the most impact in our lives overall, freeing more time and space to be more creative and feel fulfilled.

Islands in Your Company: How to Identify Them

Pamela Ayuso March 25, 2019

At Celaque, we are organized by function. We have six different departments that are structured according to the work that needs to be executed. As we strengthen the organization, we continue to place each role and responsibility within the different departments. We make sure that every operation within the company is within the purview of one of the departments and is part of that group’s systems and processes. Because each department has its own processes and uses the same company-wide systems, it makes adding one more item more efficient.

As we move forward, I have been finding islands of roles/responsibilities that have been operating independently of the departments. Inevitably, in these islands parallel processes have also been developed that don’t fall within each of the department’s main processes. The extra procedures entail an additional effort because they fall outside of the system.

Maintaining a Successful Professional Work-Life Balance

Pamela Ayuso March 18, 2019

In a growing company, the amount of work is endless. Often there is work that has accumulated and needs to get done immediately. Other times, everything might be caught up and working well. Things can always be better, however, even when everything is up-to-date, and the sky is the limit to the many improvements that can be implemented within a company.

Any entrepreneur, business owner, and company leader knows how difficult it is to let go of work at the end of the day. Our thoughts and worries don’t just go away the minute we walk through the front door at home. With today’s ubiquitous technology, it is very easy for work to start seeping into our spaces outside of our work hours.