New Year, New Start, New You, New Working Habits
The new year is the perfect time to kick bad habits to the curb and make start a fresh. For this very reason it’s one of our favourite times of year, no matter how awful the January blues are!
The very first point on your agenda should be the January 31st Tax payment deadline!! The deadline for financial year 2016-17 is at end of the month – to avoid fines makes sure you have made all relevant payments by this date. Contact your accountant if you have any worries, questions or concerns. The next date to keep in mind is the new tax year kicking off in April. Get ahead of the game, make sure you are maximizing your tax efficiency, book an appointment with one of our specialist accountants for your particular creative industry.
[/greybg]Creative New Year Resolutions
It goes without saying that resolution number 1 is to stay on top of your tax responsibilities and to make your accountant happy by getting your 2017-18 returns in on time! Tax nagging aside, we had a look at some New Year’s Resolutions to give you a few ideas of how to smash it in 2018!
18 resolutions for 2018 from Wix.com blog includes ideas like;
Be social
“Whether we like it or not, social media is a huge part of our daily routine. Without thinking, we check our Facebook, post pictures on Instagram, send messages on Snapchat and Tweet and Retweet without hesitation. With more than 2 billion monthly active users only on Facebook, it’s a no-brainer that every business owner should invest some time and effort in these platforms.”
Write a blog
“If you’ve been thinking about hopping on the blogging train, now is the time. Writing a blog has heaps of benefits, like positioning yourself or your brand as an influencer in your field and boosting your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) mojo for your website.”
Build your brand
“Today building your brand is a crucial part of any small business. It is the foundation and the core values that guide every step in your brand development strategy. Take time to understand your story and create an overall image that conveys who you are. Once you have a clear brand identity, you need to choose a target market. Figuring out who your probable customers will save you both money and time so be sure to focus your marketing efforts on those who are most likely to shop with you.”
Focus on your Mental Health
It’s fantastic that as a society we are becoming more aware of mental health, and taking the effects as seriously as we do physical health. There is still a long way to go in this area, but if we all make an effort to prioritise our mental health the impact will be widespread positivity. Quartz has put together a list of suggestions which include:
Eat Broccoli Get outside Reduce Screen Time
[/greybg]Don’t take our word for it
Take the word of 30 Highly Successful people, as they share their new year’s resolutions in Business Insider UK. We’ve picked a few of our favourites here:
TheSkimm founders Danielle Weisberg and Carly Zakin want to fail faster and fail harder!
“As our team continues to grow, we have the ability to iterate much more quickly. To encourage this, we celebrate when we fail.
In 2017, we introduced a new tradition at our Friday Sip ‘n Skimms, where one person on the team gets to wear our ‘Fail So Hard’ hat and spotlight a project that did not go as planned.
As a team we celebrate the fact that they tried and failed at something in an effort to propel the business forward. If some of our ideas are not failing, we know we’re not taking big enough chances.”
Foursquare co-founder and Executive Chairman Dennis Crowley wants to use location technology for social good.
“My resolution for 2018 is to use the power of Foursquare for social good.
We’ve spent years perfecting technology for our own apps, Foursquare City Guide and Foursquare Swarm, that understands how the world looks to mobile devices as they move through 105 million places globally.
There are so many creative uses for these capabilities, like helping urban planners to prescribe models for the revitalization of neighborhoods, understanding foot traffic and community trends, or dissecting the impact of natural disasters.
I’d love to put our tech to the task and helping others enhance physical spaces.”
Tyson Foods CEO Tom Hayes wants to help his team become more productive and agile
“In a dynamic marketplace where rapid decision making is a must, I’m resolving to doing a better job making agility contagious at Tyson. I know it begins with me, and there are always opportunities to demonstrate productive urgency. Status quo is a stubborn pest, but I know our team can drive incredible change when properly empowered.”
Creative & Inspirational Networking Events
Another resolution should be to attend more events within your particular creative industry. Its a great way to stay on top of latest issues and news in your industry and to get inspired. Attending events and honing your knowledge will also help to establish you or your organisation as an industry leader – become a guru.
One for the calendar that is coming up FAST is the mighty Creative Shootout.
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Creative Shootout Live Final 2018
The Live Final is on Thursday 25th January at BAFTA HQ. This is an unmissable event for anyone in creative, marketing and advertising industries. No matter what your field, you will not be disappointed you spent your evening in company of the Shootout.
“The nine finalist agency teams will receive the live brief from our Charity of the Year, FareShare, on the day itself (12pm to be precise). They then have just four hours to crack their creative, before pitching their thinking back in just ten minutes each to a full house at BAFTA.
Your ticket gives you a seat in the audience at BAFTA’s Princess Anne Theatre, from where you’ll see all nine teams perform live, on stage from 5.30pm until 7.45pm. And because this is a live event, you get to cast a vote on the agency you feel has the best creative campaign for FareShare. Your vote counts.
Once everyone’s caught their breath (and had a cup of tea), you’ll see the winning agency walk off with a £30,000 contribution to fees from FareShare and a whopping £250,000 media prize fund, thanks to premium publisher cooperative 1XL, to help stage the winning campaign in 2018 (the winning campaign will run May – September 2018).
After all that excitement, you’ll need a drink (or three) and a bite, so hang around for the “banging BAFTA After Party (9 – 10.30 pm approx), so you can congratulate the winners, commiserate with the losers and mingle with the uber-stellar Judging Panel.”
Tickets cost £59 for one or £100 for two or more, and are available here
