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Procrastination can be best described as the avoidance of starting or completing a task that should be done.   Often we replace unwanted tasks with more enjoyable ones instead, or we carry out less urgent tasks rather than the more urgent and important ones, which leads us to putting off impending tasks to a later time, or even never getting round to them at all.

Does this sound familiar to you?  Do you avoid having that difficult conversation with a member of staff, instead spending time with happier colleagues?  Do you leave your finances or spreadsheets unmanaged, instead occupying yourself working with children or parents?

We all have preferred learning and working styles, and I like to match my tasks with my mood – if at all possible (life does not always allow for it).  And sometimes this includes scheduling tasks to the time of the day, or day of the week, that best suits my style or motivations.  I like to get the uninteresting things done in the morning, which gives me a sense of achievement and relief, and allows me to be open to more conversations, distractions and creative work after the inevitable celebratory and rewarding lunch.  If I have a column to write, last thing on a Friday is ideal (which happens to be when I am writing this one!).  It leaves me feeling happy, productive, and imaginative.  And I can cross it off my ‘to do’ list as well.

The ways in which we each procrastinate are really useful signpost questions.  And we need to take notice of them.  Think about the following common examples, do they connect with some of your behaviours?

• Before a difficult job do you clean and tidy up everything first?
• Do you fantasise about crises and interruptions taking you away from unwanted tasks?
• Do you doubt you can complete specific tasks at all, thinking you don’t have the skills?
• Do you over estimate the time a task will take?
• Do you think you can never find enough time in your diary to start a job in the first place?
• Is there always time to chat and catch up with people, even when you have a pressing deadline?
• Is your ‘to do’ list including the same uncompleted task every day, week or month?
• Do you leave difficult jobs to the end of the day, and go home instead of finishing them?
• Do you say ‘well, another day won’t hurt will it?’
• Do you eventually have to work late, at the weekends, or on holiday, to get those avoided jobs done?
• Do you often miss deadlines, or complete at the very last minute?

If any of these questions resonate, ask yourself: what are they are telling you about how you could change your routines and approach to work?  What should you be doing, how, and when to meet your preferred working style?  And make the necessary changes to increase your enjoyment at work.

The past few weeks in early years have occupied us with getting to grips with the immediate practical challenges arising from the pandemic and lockdown.  We have invested time in making sense of the various policy and guidance updates from DfE and HMRC.  Providers have been navigating the Government’s financial support for businesses, and adapting services for vulnerable children, and providing childcare for the children of keyworkers.  It is a understatement to say it has not been easy.

The primary challenge is the not-knowing.  The uncertainty of how long these conditions will last, and to what extent COVID-19 financial support, and early years funding will be available.   Much of the public and press debate is inevitably switching to consider the notion of what a reduced lockdown might look like and when, phased returns to normal service delivery, and the reopening of all schools and childcare settings.

The local authorities I have been talking with report that around a quarter of their private, voluntary and independent early years providers are open at the moment.  With many childminders making up that figure.  All have done a really good job of sharing and circulating information to the childcare providers in their areas.  What’s really important is we now make sense of this plethora of information and summarise it, with suggested actions and considerations – essentially to ensure we have common understanding and no one is disadvantaged through lack or information or misunderstanding.  The support and opportunities available now must be grasped with both hands.

I think the raft of Government support that has been made available to business and employers has been amazing.  Without it, we would all be in a grave position.  Many early years businesses, mine included, have benefitted from the Job Retention Scheme (JRS), Small Business Grant Fund, Business Rates Holiday, VAT payment delay etc.  In addition, the confirmation of payment of full early years funding (whether settings are open, partially open, or closed) provides some peace of mind.  However, we are concerned providers are at risk of not making best use of all this financial support.  One barrier is the management challenge and the change each setting and school is required to handle, as well as adaptations to respond to the needs of keyworkers.  This is further compromised by mixed messages around what financial support is available to whom.

Present conditions remain significantly challenging and should not be underestimated.  I was very pleased to see the JRS extended to the end of June 2020.  Timing is everything and as we hurtle towards the end of the traditional school year, and approach the summer holidays, thoughts inevitably focus on September and beyond.

Everyone running a business, including early years providers, are rightly concerned about the route out of the present difficulties.  The return to any sense of familiar territory or service delivery will be a slow and uncertain one.  We do not yet know how parental employment patterns will effect eligibility, need and demand for funded entitlements (universal, two-year-olds and 30 hours) and paid-for childcare.  Recovery will not be like switching on a lightbulb.  Instead, we will all have to carefully and continuously monitor our markets and parents’ and children’s needs, preferences and behaviours.  Our market monitoring must inform nimble and constant change to the services we are used to delivering.  This will have huge impacts on our biggest resource, the workforce. The management test will be huge.

Local authorities remain responsible for the childcare sufficiency duties (Childcare Act 2016) for all children.  Additionally, DfE expects LAs “support childcare settings to ensure that there are sufficient places for the children of critical workers and vulnerable children.  Local authorities are also responsible for monitoring demand and capacity.  This requirement may ebb-and-flow as we move out and into lockdown or social distancing requirements.  This may involve working with childcare settings to provide places in alternative settings if necessary.” Councils must ensure they are taking appropriate actions now, and are prepared and ready to support the sector to recover as the effects of the pandemic unfold.

We recommend a four-strand strategy for local authorities:

1. Information.  Provide a reliable and up-to-date source of information to inform providers’ business choices, decisions and actions.  Take time to digest, analyse and summarise information.  Offer guidance as well as signposting and referring to other sources of information.
2. Tools.  Make available a set of useful tools and resources to help providers take action.  Include a range of bespoke tools and signpost to others available.
3. Support.  Be available for responsive support on demand through email, telephone or video conferencing.  Support can be to problem solve, clarify information, and/or support the use of tools.  Offer bespoke online business support training.
4. Intervention.  Make available targeted intervention to support action planning through crises and emergencies.  Support where settings are identifying serious sustainability issues, in areas where there is a sufficiency need.  Signpost to or offer financial grant and/or loan funding where this is thought to resolve the identified risk.  Set out clearly the deliverables and commitments of intervention support.

Once the current situation changes, the manner in which schools and settings respond to a highly dynamic childcare marketplace and a transformed employment picture, will be of critical importance.  The sector was already reported to be under financial and sustainability pressure prior to the pandemic.  The medium- and long-terms may present further critical challenge and need for change, as well as new opportunities, that must be managed.

This blog was first published by http://www.cypnow.co.uk

Traditionally people write or revise their CVs when they are unhappy in a role or when they are planning a move.  I recommend everyone has an up-to-date CV at all times – even if you aren’t thinking of moving on.  I think they are best done at other times as well.  The time could be right now if you have unexpected free time in lockdown, and this is why.

Keeping a live CV helps us to reflect upon and celebrate our skills and career progress.  A CV also supports us to identify our learning achievements and to identify new ones.  And a CV can give us confidence to take a promotion and can highlight new directions for our future careers.  Finally, opportunity and challenge has a funny habit of knocking on our doors when we least expect it.  You need to be ready for if and when that happens.  The world after lockdown, and throughout the ebb-and-flow of the COVID-19 pandemic will change everything.

So, that’s the why, but what about the how?  Here are my tips for setting out your CV.

It is true what they say about first impressions.  I do love receiving CVs, and I see a lot of them.  They are so revealing about so many things.  Your CV really does have around 30 seconds to motivate the reader to stick with it.  It needs to connect with everyone and impress them, without falling into the trap of being too overly confident and self-promoting.

When it comes to size and structure.  It should be 1-2 pages maximum, with clear headings, and formatted using a consistent font and size.  There should be a short introduction.  Followed by your work experience in reverse chronological order (latest first), then your qualifications and training in the same way.  And be focused with your qualifications and training, you don’t have to include everything, you can summarise – especially your school qualifications as you get older and more experienced, they become less relevant.

Highlight your specific core skills using bullets or short sentences with proof and examples. A mistake is to be too wordy, and risks hiding your message with unnecessary wordage.  Focus on the facts and figures instead.  Please avoid those clichés you learned from watching The Apprentice.  Support it with detail about your values, people skills, relationships with colleagues, managers and service users or customers.

I like to know about work interests – the things that really excite a candidate – what do you love doing at work?  That is much more useful than a list of bland personal interests, such as ‘meeting up with friends’, the cinema or reading, that doesn’t really tell me anything that stands out from anyone else.

My view is that photographs, and too many personal details including your date of birth risk creating bias when a CV is read.  Anyway, informed and diversity literate employers should delete this sort of information before they consider a CV.  Do include simple contact details though.  Please make sure you have a professional email address – I do see a lot of very strange choices when it comes to email addresses.  I won’t embarrass you with example, I will leave that to your imagination.  This is an important tip!

Finally and hugely importantly, you must get it proof checked by at least 2-3 people in your work arena and ask them to comment on the format, spelling, accuracy and grammar.  And make changes that are required.  Then check it again.  Nothing puts me off more than simple or avoidable errors.  And if and when you need to share it, send a nicely printed version on good quality paper.  Or in PDF version by email so the formatting does not change on different software or computers.  If you’re not moving job, file it and review it again in a few months’ time or when the mood takes you.

So many people in business seem focused on growth.  There appears to be no end of people wanting to tell us how to be bigger.  But why?  Instead, we should all be more interested in being better, more effective and positively impactful.  We need to meet our stated aims and moral missions, whilst sustaining ourselves at the same time.  Bigger isn’t always better.

I remember what happened to local council early years teams between the mid 90’s and the mid 2000’s.  I would visit council’s and be lucky to find an early years officer at all.  In one area, I remember they had one-and-a-half.  They were great, knew everyone, did everything, and what they didn’t know about early years and childcare wasn’t worth knowing.  Fast forward to 2005, and the same council had over 90 people working in early years and childcare, plus contracted organisations.  And I found it the most frustrating thing.  They were not great, they didn’t even know each other, could only do their specialist roles, and they needed teaching more than a thing or two.  This was a good example of the Ringelmann Effect (1913); the tendency for individual members of a group to become increasingly less productive as the size of their group increases.  Ringelmann found as more people are added to a group, it often becomes increasingly inefficient.  It is a useful counter-argument to those who believe big is better.

Recent times have caused us all to have real concerns about our businesses and to rethink them – across all sectors.  In early years and childcare, we are in the frontline of anticipating and meeting children and families’ massively changing needs, whilst grappling with the realities of finance and business.  The fallout of the COVID-19 crisis will create a different world for so many of us for years to come.  And these extraordinary conditions will require us to an even sharper focus on the characteristics of our businesses, including their size.  This could result in growth, but a consequence could be us becoming smaller.

It’s a cliché, I know, but I love the phrase: turnover is vanity, profit is sanity, cash is reality.  After 20 years in business, I believe this is useful, with some justification.  Being in the private sector (I have worked in the charity, voluntary and public sector before) I am well-used to the unfair accusation of being exclusively motivated by profit.  I am not.  This of course is not only a simplistic view; it does not acknowledge we all have business missions and morals.  However, anyone in business should appreciate the peace of mind and opportunities that money in the bank, generated by profit, offers the business.  The ability to build profits or reserves has been significantly under pressure for the past 10 years after the financial crisis and through austerity.  Just as we were perhaps imagining the possibility of things getting better, COVID-19 has changed and will change everything.

Perhaps we might all have to get used to smaller businesses and turnovers.  Which means many of us will need to learn to let go, release the vanity and pride attached to scale, and make some difficult and realistic decisions.  But the real value of our work is our moral mission and the difference we can make.  And there are some advantages to being smaller as Ringelmann found.

Even before COVID-19, there’s been a lot of discussion about reducing hours at work.  Typically, the talk is about working four days instead of five days a week, all for the same pay.  Sounds like an unbelievably tempting offer doesn’t it?   Lockdown has also forced to us to rethink being present at work, travel to work, technology and our work-life balance so we can meet our personal and professional responsibilities.

The problem is much of this chat and change all seems very focused on an office-based working environment where you might not need to be sitting at your desk all day, every day.  It doesn’t readily work for those in many other roles, such as retail, hospitals, and schools.  In a whole range of roles, people cannot simply decide to reduce working hours, because people rely upon them to be there, to support them, and to deliver services.

But the idea of working differently has always interested me.  I’ve been thinking about the hours we spend working, getting ready for work, travelling to work, thinking about work, and talking about it – outside those hours we actually do it or are paid for it.  It made we wonder what changes can help us work more closely to the hours we are paid for.  Now, through the lockdown, the use of technology has forced me to seriously consider that like never before.

I meet a lot of people who are contracted for around 37 hours each week. Yet they work many more hours than that.  This usually happens by arriving early in the morning, missing breaks and lunchtimes, doing extra tasks (like work shopping or laundry), staying late, bringing work home, or working weekends.  It is a familiar scene – and a life that I have lived myself.  Some professions are expected to do all of this without complaint.  We do this because we are committed and we care.

There is a total of 168 hours for us to spend each week.  We should be aiming for a minimum of eight hours sleep a night, which comes to 56 hours and leaves us with 112 awake hours.  We should expect and enjoy a weekend to rest and spend time with family and friends.  That uses up another 32.  And so to live and to work in the week we only have around 80 hours left.  If we work full-time, then that is almost half our time.  It starts to feel really important we use the rest of our time carefully.

And this is why. It is so easy to spend our free time doing work related things on top of the paid time, and that extra time we might already be spending on work.  I am thinking about things like travel to work time.  How much is that for you?  ACAS reported the 2011 census found the average commute to work time was 54 minutes (www.acas.gov.uk 2015).  That is a staggering nine hours a week.  If you travel less than the average then you are already doing better than most to manage your time.

But I wonder about hidden time we are spending when we are thinking or talking about work when we should be living instead.  And how much time do we spend preparing ourselves for work too, doing things like getting work clothes ready, preparing our personal presentation, organising our lunches, and being physically and mentally healthy for work?  It is starting to feel like we spend up to double our working time on work related activities.  A time deficit of 25 hours plus in our working weeks could be a familiar story.  So rethinking work hours shouldn’t be just about a four-day week instead of a five day one, it should be about making sure we work the hours we need to, valuing our time differently, and perhaps prioritising a healthy balance.  Thank goodness for holidays that’s what I say – as long as we switch off from work of course.