ORGANISATION REIGNS SUPREME FOR JO PETERS

AS AN ENTREPRENEUR, HOW OFTEN DURING ANY GIVEN WEEK DO YOU FEEL OVERWHELMED WITH TASKS? FEEL GUILTY FOR NOT GIVING ENOUGH OF YOURSELF TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE AT THE RIGHT TIME? IT’S A MODERN-DAY ENTREPRENEURIAL CONUNDRUM. WE CHAT WITH JO PETERS AT JSP VIRTUAL TO SEE WHY ORGANISATION IS CRUCIAL FOR AN ENTREPRENEUR’S FREEDOM

Of an evening, guilt can creep up on an entrepreneur for whatever it is they’re not giving their attention to. Out for dinner with your partner but keeping one eye on your emails? In a meeting yet feeling bad for not being home for a family event?

With wellness at the heart of much of how we do business and indeed life in 2023, how does an entrepreneur achieve it? Jo Peters, founder of Leicester-based company JSP Virtual seems to have it sussed. “I believe through organisation first and foremost. How many of you have a day of meetings mapped out but fail to map out time for other tasks, as well as say, spending time watching a film with your family?”

I’d imagine it’s a high proportion. I know that I experienced a little of this in lockdown. Working from home meant that I found the balance occasionally tricky – making dinner for my children whilst feeling like I ought to be on my email, even though I wouldn’t have felt that pull to the ‘other’ list of things on a typical working day in the office,. For a business owner, this pull must be even greater. A reflection that is shared by Jo.

“Feeling like there’s no clear space for all the things can often make us become stressed and overwhelmed, and then unproductive. Mapping out your personal time as well as your professional hours allows a certain freedom for our clients. If they have scheduled in dinner with family 6pm7pm, it’s guilt-free, they don’t feel like they ‘should be doing something else’.”

So, with the solution to this conflicting guilt that so many entrepreneurs experience being as simple as organisation, I ask Jo why it can be so difficult to achieve.

“I, like so many of us, love that feeling of a mapped-out diary Emily, it’s one of the reasons I made it my career!” Jo says with enthusiasm after I share my feelings about having a day of organising at the start of a new month. “It’s difficult for many of our clients to find the time to do the organisational part though – carving out the time to get things organised takes time, a resource that many don’t have.”

An entrepreneur’s time can be spent in all the right ways, each and every week, no matter the schedule or deadline. Jo suggests achieving this by using a default diary, colour coding your Google Calendar, or even outsourcing tasks to a company that thrives on organisations.

Jo has written more tips and advice in her blog at jspvirtual.co.uk/news.

“I can see the difference organisation makes to our clients. They are more productive, and efficient with their time but above all, they have a greater sense of balance in their life – and a greater sense of freedom as a result.”

Words by Emily Miller