Category Archives: Business/life balance

Spin cycle

Most of the Word Up year is spent in a heid birlin’, plate spinning, perpetual motion state. If Word Up’s working life was animated, it would give cartoon legend the Road Runner a sprint for his small business money. Admittedly, there’s no Wily E. Coyote hot on my heels, but much of my self-employed existence is

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Silence is olden

Wrinkles, a spare tire, sag and spread. A light sprinkling of liver spots, the sprouting of some rather robust facial hair, a pair of creaky knees, a brace of aching hips, and the distinct droop of a once proud embonpoint. Another year is about to pass into the history books, adding another chapter to the litany of advancing

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Wishful thinking

Once more unto the small business breach, dear friends. The sun has set on Word Up’s annual summer sojourn. And amazingly, for a Scottish staycation, there was actually some sun. For two whole days. But not in a row, dinnae be daft. Annoyingly, given the desperate need for a break from the trials of entrepreneurial

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Pack mentality

  If safety, security and water cooler chat feature high on your career wishlist, then sorry old chum, but sole trading just ain’t a path you want to be wandering down. Working as a lone wolf is exactly what is says on the tin. Not the wolf part – although I’ve met a few vulpine

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Cream crackered in commerce

The engine of this usually energetic entrepreneur is stuttering and threatening to stall, but I’ve just got to keep motoring. I’ve got to admit it, this wee wrangler of words is very nearly out of gas. My burgeoning business is going great guns but the operator is running on fumes. I’m whacked, knackered and a

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A solid state of mind

It’s no laughing matter. Getting sick when you’re running your own business, that is. Touch wood, cross fingers and rub a rabbit’s foot but in the year since embarking on the insanity that is self-employment I have been tickety-boo healthwise. In fact, I have been feeling a whole lot better in body and mind since

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Sick as a parrot

Sole trading? It’s enough to make me sick. Picture the scene. It’s half an hour before you’re due to head off to deliver some work for a client, when the words that strike fear and loathing into the very soul of every sole trader or small business come calling. No, not “hello, this is HMRC,

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A summer survival strategy

Two days into the school summer holidays, and my nerves are in tatters already… I’ve been fretting for weeks about how exactly I am going to carry on at the commercial coalface whilst the Word Up Wean is mumping, moaning, and generally getting under my feet whilst school’s out for summer. See, I’m not one

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Liar, liar pants on fire

Only kidding. Kidding myself, and everyone else, on. Because, you see, I’ve been telling fibs. Not wee white lies, but great big porkies. Not the kind of lies that are going to get me hauled up by the polis, or land me in the dock – I’m not a politician, a tabloid editor, a banker,

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Life in the fast lane

Stop that train, I wanna get off. Just lately the runaway train that is my life has been going a wee bit too fast for comfort. That hurtling at high velocity feeling is fun for a while, but it soon sends you spinning. I wouldn’t mind a few days pootling around the Cathcart circle on

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