Working from home series: Productivity

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This week my conversations with clients getting used to working from home, many of them with children who are adjusting to schooling from home, have centred on productivity. Here are a few simple things I’ve learnt over the past 20 years that help keep me ‘productive’ in my home office:

  • Set a routine and accept that this might not be the same as what you’re used to. Do what works in your household, and don’t forget to take breaks!
  • Turn your phone over so you don’t see every single notification. Every time you look at your phone it interrupts your concentration and reduces productivity.
  • Turn your phone to silent and put it on vibrate for when it rings. You might miss a call or two but that’s what voicemail is for.
  • Make a list of 6 things to get done in your day, it’s more realistic to achieve 6 things than a long list of everything.
  • Consider altering the number of hours you work. When you’re in a workplace you have interruptions and distractions so even if you’re at work 8 hours a day that doesn’t mean you’re solidly working for 8 hours. At home, with less distractions, you are more productive so you can get more done in less time.
  • Be kind to yourself. If you can’t sit at your computer for 40 hours a week, that’s okay. Prioritise and do what you can.

Working from home series: simple tips

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A lot of people think that I write books all day (actually most of you know by now that at the moment I’m NOT writing books all day given that I haven’t published a novel since 2017!) – what many don’t know is that I have owned my own media and marketing company for more than 20 years, mp|media solutions.

Here are some tips on working from home inspired by conversations with many of my clients who have shifted into their home offices and I’ve been helping them adjust to this ‘new normal abnormal’.

I’ve been working from home for 20 years, always with children underfoot, at my elbow, on my lap or calling out from the next room. Here are a few things I do to make it work:

  • Make the bed
  • Get dressed and brush your hair
  • Don’t forget to eat lunch, try and keep it healthy. Also work out in the morning what you’re having for dinner that night
  • Try and exercise every day
  • Take regular breaks and go outside when you can
  • Set your work hours. I’m better in the mornings so I start really early, I might take a couple of hours during the day for a walk or bike ride, and even when I am super busy I try and finish at 5 because I’m not producing valuable work after that time!

Okay, this is what it would be like in an ideal world, it doesn’t always turn out like this, but each new day is a fresh start.

Missing persons advocate: Melissa Pouliot

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The day I first met the staff in the Australian Federal Police National Missing Persons Coordination Centre set me on a path I could never have predicted. The support they have provided during the search for Ursula and then with the discovery that she had been found means more to me than I can put into words (and that’s saying something!). Although they do not play an investigative role, they were able to provide information that helped me navigate through the complex missing persons space. It was a privilege to be invited to sit down with them and share my journey and my passion for continued advocacy for missing people – this is what they wrote.

…..

Melissa is a woman who wears many hats; wife, mum of three, cricket mum, dance mum, media company owner, outdoors lover, book lover and keen mountain bike rider. You would think she wouldn’t have much time to relax, but around her busy schedule, Melissa manages to write crime fiction novels and speak around the country advocating on behalf of families of missing persons.

Ursula Barwick

Melissa has strong personal ties to the issue of missing persons. In 1987, when she was just 15 years old, her cousin Ursula went missing. She was on her way to the ‘big city’ to follow work and after her family said goodbye to her at the train station, they never heard from Ursula again.

Melissa’s relationship with Ursula was that of very close cousins. Melissa recalls how growing up on a farm meant that as kids, they would spend their days picking blackberries, riding motorbikes, camping and picnicking. They would ‘pack a lunch at the start of the day and head for the hills and come back at night’. They would share many chats and memories together, but it is the specific conversations that Melissa finds hard to recall. “I wish we had some recordings of her talking and laughing, as I have her voice in my head but it’s so long since I’ve heard it out loud… I miss her.”

During the many years spent searching for answers, Melissa said it was a difficult process. As she was quite young at the time of Ursula’s disappearance, she felt a very strong sense of powerlessness in being able to find her.

It took Melissa’s family 30 years to discover Ursula’s whereabouts, and a fresh investigation which started in 2014 ended last year with confirmation from police that she had sadly died in a car accident shortly after going missing.

Day for Daniel

It is this experience that clearly defines Melissa and her passion for helping others. As an advocate for missing persons, Melissa speaks regularly and is a Day for Daniel Ambassador. By generously sharing her personal insights, she hopes it will help others going through a similar uncertain journey. “I turned to writing as a creative outlet to help me work through my emotions, which I had buried for a really long time until I published my first novel inspired by Ursula in 2013, and spoke publicly about her for the first time. I really need something to help me get through the renewed investigation for her, and that’s where writing became such an essential part of my life.”

Melissa created a successful book series based on fictional characters. With five novels published, and now working on her sixth, they help her step away from her real life trauma. Drawing on her own experiences, her fast-paced novels are helping people all over the world better understand the confusing and emotional rollercoaster of having a missing loved one.

Ambiguous loss

When asked what she would like to pass on to the many families of long-term missing persons dealing with ambiguous loss, Melissa says:

The main message I try to pass on is to never give up hope. I really held onto that strongly through the past five years and that’s what drove me forward to keep speaking up for Ursula.

“The hope was initially to honour her memory and that was my driver. Then it became clear there were things that weren’t looked into, and it became hope for fresh eyes on her case. The hope kept transferring, shattering and swinging around, but I had to try to reinvigorate it continually in the hope we would discover the truth.

“Hope isn’t just one word, it doesn’t mean one thing. Hope is the pillar of small wins along the way.”

Further to everything she has so far accomplished, Melissa is running her successful business, MP Media Solutions, which aims to support her clients work and celebrate their successes.

This year she has volunteered her time to help her home community of Tathra after the devastating fires that tore through the small coastal town in March, and has collected thousands of new books to replace lost home libraries through the “Book Love for Tathra” campaign.

With so many balls in the air and such a selfless and friendly personality, Melissa is a truly inspirational person who has turned what was such a devastating loss into a lifetime of advocacy and community service with a focus and passion like no other.

We can’t wait to see what is next for Melissa Pouliot.

ABC Radio book review: Write About Me

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Write About Me, book review, Melissa Pouliot, ABC

The kindness and generosity of total strangers is something to be celebrated and shared. Two women from Toowoomba dedicated over 11 minutes of airtime on ABC Southern Queensland to me and my debut crime novel Write About Me.

They were having a conversation about the Unleash the Beast event on Wednesday 10th October 2018  that I’m part of for World Mental Health Day.

I feel so blessed – thankyou Emma Mactaggart and Belinda Sanders!

Have a listen – Emma loved Write About Me and says so many lovely things which is a huge boost for me to keep writing!!

Write About Me

The year is 1988 and 16-year old Annabelle Brown from northern Queensland runs away from her family and friends for the bright lights of somewhere new. She ends up in Kings Cross in Sydney where her life takes some dark twists and turns. Endorsed by the Australian Federal Police, Write About Me is real and raw and will break your heart into a million pieces. Inspired by the author’s true family cold case mystery, ‘Write About Me’ is a heart-wrenching story about a teenage runaway who doesn’t come home. Not crime, not fiction, but that dangerous place in between.

Order online:

Book review: Found by Melissa Pouliot

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books Write About Me Found

By Lyndal Reading, The Weekly Times, Country Living, October 25, 2017

FROM seedy Kings Cross of the 1980s to the beaches of Anglesea, the disappearance of Annabelle Brown is felt through the decades in this work of fiction by Merimbula-based author Melissa Pouliot.

Protagonist Christine, a former prostitute but now successful jewellery designer, can’t escape the memories of her past when a former love re-enters her life.

The sudden appearance of her former drug dealer and boyfriend, Ant, sends her into a tailspin. She gets in touch with her former boss, Bessie, then returns to “the Cross” and to drug taking as she tries to dig up information about her missing friend, Annabelle.

Annabelle, 19, vanished during a party in the Blue Mountains. No trace of her was found and any witnesses remained tight-lipped.

A keen detective, Louise Whadary, takes up the cold case and her life soon intersects with Christine’s.

Whadary brings fresh eyes to the case in her search for clues, although the case, frustratingly, has very few.

Pouliot easily switches between the past and present without losing the thread of the story and an unexpected twist at the end ties up a few loose ends and explains why the case took so long to crack.

The author draws on her personal experience as the relative of a missing person, as she has done with previous books.

Pouliot’s books often finish with a cliffhanger. Found reaches a conclusion that mirrors her personal experience.

Pouliot’s cousin, Ursula, 17, had been missing since 1987 before it was discovered she had died in a car accident near Tarcutta on the Hume Highway earlier this year.

Ursula had been living under a new name, and was quietly buried in Emu Plains cemetery when police couldn’t track down her family.