While employees spend the holidays relaxed and festive, many business owners are secretly fretting over whether they crossed all the t’s and dotted all the i’s before the end-of-year close.

All you want to do is unwind, sip some cocoa and give your family your undivided attention. But you can’t keep your mind from wandering back to work.

Maybe you missed a few goals this year, and you’re worried next year will bring more of the same. Maybe it was a year of growth, and you’re not sure if you’re set up to keep the momentum.

It’s critical to spend the weeks before break pulling your socks up, getting organised and planning ahead for a successful year.

Follow our end-of-year checklist so you can spend your break opening presents and decking the halls, not opening emails and making calls. Come back in January relaxed, recharged and ready to go.

Most people dislike debt collection. It can feel so icky. But you deserve to be paid! Here are some tips for getting the money you’re owed without feeling like you need a shower.

Well done – you listened to the experts, bunkered down and wrote a business strategy.

But don’t relax just yet.

Though organisations all over the world spend millions each year devising new strategies, Gartner says fewer than half actually execute on them.

You, my friend, are going to be in that elite group that executes – and succeeds. Because we are going to show you how.

Is the idea of a business strategy overblown? After all, there are loads of businesses out there chugging merrily along without one. Loads more have some vague ideas they like to call a strategy, but are really more like a wishlist.

So yeh, maybe flying by the seat of your pants can work – for a while.

You may be able to run a business without a strategy, but you can’t grow it. Sooner or later, you will hit a wall you can’t break through, and you’ll be stuck there spinning your wheels while the rest of your industry zooms on by.

You also won’t know how to build resilience or change course if you need to, making your business vulnerable to disruptions – like economic downturns, changing markets, alien invasions and whatever other scary thing pops up on your newsfeed.

OK, so a strategy might not feel necessary in your day-to-day. But it’s actually a pretty big deal if you want your business to have long-term security.

Loads of stressed-out executives out there have a sneaky suspicion a virtual executive assistant could make their lives so much easier. (Spoiler alert: they’re right.) But they don’t hire one because they’re not sure what the process is like or what they’d have an EA do.

At Zembr, we take the mystery out of the decision with a clearly documented process we call the Zembr Experience. Let’s walk through it with an imaginary business owner so you can see just how easy it can be to streamline your life.

Newsflash: Your time and energy supplies are limited.

If you want to be truly productive, treat your time like money. Don’t waste it, invest it wisely and get as much out of it as you can.

Enter the 4 Areas of Execution – a framework for getting more done in less time without losing your mind.

If you feel burnt out or stuck no matter how hard you work, there’s probably an issue in one of these areas: time and task management, delegation, accountability, and the most magical unicorn of all, work-life balance.

Fed up with feeling flat-out? Sick of seeming swamped? Irritated by never-ending to-dos?

(Yeah, we lost the trick a bit there at the end. Alliteration’s hard.)

Well grab a coffee, sit up straight and pay attention. We’re about to set you on a path to the New You.

New You isn’t drowning in tasks. New You is the master of time management. New You gets it all done with time left over.

Here’s how.

It feels like modern adulting wasn’t made for mere mortals. Work hard! Go out with your friends! Family night! Daily exercise! Recycle! Hydrate! DIY home repair! Volunteer! Self-care! And don’t forget to work hard!

A lot of people can’t even talk about maintaining work life balance because that would imply they have a balance to maintain.

We’ve got you, superhero. We know you’re doing your best. Now let’s get you balanced so your days feel less like, “Aah! Stress!” and more like “Ahh, yes.”

Most busy professionals are great at planning all the Things That Need to be Done. It’s in the actual doing of the things that the plan goes wonky.

That’s because most busy professionals are missing a key team member: an accountability partner.

Accountability is the glue that sticks commitment to results. It’s what keeps “I will post five times a week to LinkedIn” from turning into “I planned to post to LinkedIn, but I got busy. And then I felt bad for not doing it, so now I’m scrolling TikTok for kitten videos.”

Meet Dave. Dave’s a fantastic closer. He has the potential to be the company’s Number One All-Star sales rep. There’s just one problem. Dave’s sales productivity is in the gutter.

He’s great at chatting up customers, warming up leads and closing deals. But Dave only spends a fraction of his week actually doing those things. The rest of the time, he’s researching prospects, writing proposals and using two fingers to punch information into the CRM.

Dave is like a lot of sales reps. He’s a likable, gregarious bloke who’s great at getting people to sign on the dotted line.

He’s not so great at sitting in an office tending to mundane administrative details.

You know, the stuff thattakes up more than 70% of his time.

You know those managers who look like they have it all together? Their business is growing, they give back to their community and they still make it to all of little Timmy’s soccer games.

You could envy those folks. You could be annoyed by them. You could sigh wistfully and wish you were more like them. But the best thing you could do is learn from them. Lucky for you, we know their secret. 🤫

They can do it all because they don’t try to do it all. They’ve mastered the art of delegation. Someone else handles the minor-but-important tasks that keep things running, freeing up the manager’s time to focus on the big things in their work and their personal life.

Fill your cup and get comfortable, because we’re about to teach you how to delegate like them.

💡 Is delegation the weak spot in your execution, or is it something else? Take the Diagnose the CEO quiz to find out! 💡

Does this sound familiar? An overworked exec or entrepreneur spends too much time stuck in the weeds of day-to-day busywork. They know a virtual executive assistant could take those admin tasks off their plate, and they’re going to find one – just as soon as they get the business in order, document some processes, figure out which tasks to delegate, make a training plan…

So, never. They’re never getting out of the weeds. 😖

We get it. A lot of busy people are flying by the seat of their pants, handling things as they come up. And though that works for them, it’s not a system an EA can step in and take over. So they put off finding an assistant, thinking they need to get organised before bringing in help.

Meanwhile, they waste valuable time and energy on work that’s not making them happy or moving the business forward.

If this sounds like you, we’d like to share a secret: you’re making this harder than it needs to be.

You’re already overwhelmed. Why add another layer of tasks to your list before getting someone to help you? That’s like cleaning before the maid arrives. It just doesn’t make sense.

Instead, reverse the process.