I realised quite early on in lockdown that I needed to exercise more. My commute now consisted of around six easy steps across the corridor into the spare bedroom – a far cry from the train journey and walk along Princes Street to our West End Edinburgh office.

This, coupled with the kitchen cupboards in far too easy reach, meant that if we did need to go back to the office in a hurry, my suit was going to be much snugger than it used to be!

I knew I needed to adapt my lifestyle.

I started by reducing the amount and type of food I bought.  This was relatively easy since I couldn’t visit a shop to buy what I really wanted.

I also bought some dumbbells and started doing a YouTube beginners workout every morning. As I started to consider what my future work/life would look like, I pondered on the thought of whether the 12 mile commute would be possible on my bike, at least for a couple of days a week, but I’ll definitely need to do some practice. With the “work from home” flexibility, these workouts easily fit into my day and I quickly found myself clad in Lycra, pedalling my way around the roads of Mid and East Lothian with the seemingly hundreds of others who had the same idea.

How businesses have adapted to changing practices

It is very easy to fire fight changes, especially at these times, rather than look to the future, but it is something that individuals and businesses need to continually do.

The systems that you have in place now, might not be what your business needs as it grows and changes in the new post-COVID world.

Changes in reporting demands, increased manual spreadsheets and workload, and difficulty working remotely all point towards assessing your business systems and processes, mean that you need to continually assess your business plans in order to grow and become a more profitable business.

I’m really lucky where I live – on a Wednesday a van arrives in the street selling bread, fish, meat and vegetables, and on a Friday, the classic fish van rolls up.  I’ve seen both businesses adapt by adding remote card payment services – an increasing necessity to control “dirty” money. Similarly, my local deli has set up an online shop and has found a way to text out invoices to customers for payment.

There are really simple steps which have enabled them to adapt to the current situation and set themselves up for future growth. All businesses must continually review and assess these systems to ensure that they are using the most modern technology available to them.

The same is true of me – I recently discovered that the local pub has started up a "drive-thru’ cake-away"...I’m pretty sure that they’ll accept my custom if I rock up on my bike!

I probably need to change my cycle routes.

Contact us

If you would like to speak to a member of our Business Advisory or Digital Solutions teams about how they can help you assess your business needs, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.