With the effects of coronavirus and the subsequent countermeasures being taken having a profound and long lasting impact on the way we live and work, there have already been countless blogs and articles covering the topic of working from home. I'm generally not one to blow my own trumpet. But as someone who has worked at least three days a week (or more) from home for the past six years, I've both developed and learnt a few tactics to help get the most out of my day. Some of these are directly work-relevant, others are more lifestyle related. All of them play a part in enabling me to actually get shit done. 

I've been working with charities and other non-profits for the past six years, much of it providing public relations support. And as anyone who has worked in the sector for any length of time will know, that often means scrabbling to get your story into a handful of sector-specific publications or sections of national publications like Society in The Guardian. 

From a PR consultant's point of view, this is hardly the perfect set up. More importantly, as someone who has worked in and for charities, it's a terrible state of affairs for the sector as a whole. I know for a fact there are countless stories, opinions and voices that are simply going unheard because of a lack of access to relevant platforms.

With the effects of coronavirus effective laying waste to countless organisations and relatively little in the way of coverage for the plight of hundreds of charities across the country, this is a situation that seriously needs to change.

When working as a freelance consultant, you rely on your ability to identify and secure customers. Your existence depends on it. But having worked as a service provider for a reasonable portion of my career, I've learnt that business development and the process of finding and onboarding new customers, clients or partners is rarely what you think it might be.