Dealing with laziness fall-out

I used to work with a lovely guy who was congenitally lazy. My colleague M was a lovable, funny personality, too bright for his own good and unwilling to do the hard graft that comes with a successful start in sales.

Eventually, he was pulled aside by his boss, who had some terrifying stats from IT about M's internet use - on a bad day, six hours of his eight hour day was time he spent online. M was asked to justify his full-price salary when the perception was that he was delivering only a quarter of the value.

Everyone has some days where they can't be bothered to be a high performer, and none of us really thrive in an environment that combines low challenge with low supervision. But say that like my colleague M, you've had one too many lazy days - how on earth do you get yourself out of deepest unproductivity and back on track?

1. Assess what the fall-out is. What have you let slip? The World's Best To-Do list needs a post of it's own - but make a list of tasks you haven't done, people you haven't been paying attention to, and goals you're not moving closer to, and put them in order of what's most likely to blow up in your face first.

2. Then, actually do it. Fixing neglected situations is never appealing - so if you need to get back into the swing of things, check off a couple of the "quick fixes" off your list first. Also, do not spend ages making your list, preventing you from actually Sorting Things Out. This day is about Doing, not Preparing to Do.

3. Then, do the most explode-y one. Bribe yourself if you have to. For me, it's easier to sort out terrible messes if I'm holding a cappuccino. Do not bribe yourself with a half-hour of internet surfing. Begin by acknowledging that it has taken you longer than it should have to sort out your big potentially explosive mess - a simple "Sorry it's taken me a while to get back to you, everything here has been very busy" is better than "I've recently become addicted to Ebay and now the terrible fear of my boss is forcing me to pull my finger out". Then, deal with the situation professionally.

4. Repeat. Move down your list. Keep working - you can't get out from under a mountain of undone stuff without some shoveling. Do some "overt working" on active tasks that are noticeable - call your clients/agencies, and project energy and confidence when you're doing it.

5. Analyse how it happened and make changes. Accept that the consequence of too many lazy days is a huge mess and potentially career-limiting. (If you don't care about that, you're in the wrong job. ) If it's something more innocuous, like trouble getting started in the morning, you need to make a deal with your lazy side. Schedule out the first half hour of your day to go through emails in peace, for example, but be prepared to make up the time at the end of your day.

6. Get a laziness buddy. Find someone at work that you really rate. (Not someone you really like: you're looking for an uberprofessional here.) When you're procrastinating, what are they doing? If your buddy is working - you should be too.

7. Have some productive fun. It's essential to my job that I keep on top of the industry. So I spend an hour a week reading related blogs and trade press. Perfect for balancing laziness and productivity. For you, this might mean starting to Twitter to reach your customers or colleagues, attending a monthly networking lunch, or pitching a new idea to your boss. Remember, this is iceing, not cake.

Business, bad credit and bastard banks

One of the major frustrations of anyone starting their own business has to be the unpredictability of cashflow and the hassle of dealing with your chosen bank. My relatively uninformed view that all the major UK high street banks are as bad as each other, although RecruitmentNick does have an interesting post about starting a business account when your credit rating isn't up to much.

There are lots of reasons why you might struggle with your bank or your credit as an entrepreneur - the biggest one is that a lender doesn't treat your business as seperate to you as an individual when you're starting out. Here are some key things to smooth out the potential worst case scenarios:

1. Register your business as a company as soon as possible. Any accountant can do this for you, it costs about £80, and you get the small business bonus of VAT registration. Although your credit rating still comes into play, it also makes your business a distinct entity from you as an individual. Result.

2. Make someone with better credit a silent director of the business. This allows you to mitigate your poor credit. Essential to the success of this one: picking someone who will actually be silent.

3. Never, ever be an arse to your bank. Dan once spent fifteen minutes berating and shouting at at a poor teller from his bank that he couldn't buy bread and it was all her fault. It was her fault - she'd refused an advance on a cleared cheque - but I'm almost positive the incident made its way into Dan's customer record.

4. Make a simple business plan that includes a cashflow projection and show it to your bank manager when you meet to discuss your account needs. By simple, I mean a five-year old could grasp its minutiae. Particularly if your business is based on a service or a new technology, it needs to be easy to grasp. Lenders hate taking risks on things that are confusing.

5. Plan for the WCS. If it's a flatout no, what's your banking plan B? Think about going through a specialist in company formations, or about running the business through a personal account for a while, or going through your credit file with a finetooth comb to make sure it's accurate. Or do all three.