New year, new planner!

After getting some solid recommendations from translator colleagues, I've treated myself to a new desk planner. Whoop! 🎉

I'd been using the same desk planner for a couple of years, plodding along fairly contentedly without questioning how it influenced my use of time.

But when 2024 arrived and I reached the final couple of pages, I started asking myself if there might be a better way to organise my goals and my tasks. 🎯

There's nothing like a break to help you see the wood for the trees.

Coming back from a break with a fresh approach, I realised that my planner's 'daily priorities' list was too long. Way too long.

This made me feel obligated to fill that list. But I already know that for us non superhumans it's hard to have more than three priorities per day (h/t Oliver Burkeman). I tended to have a long list of unfocused, never-fully-completed tasks.

Plus it didn't really guide me to set monthly micro goals and then reflect on them at the end of each month, so there was not much consistency or coherence going on.

So now I'm the proud owner of a Clever Fox planner, which is helping me reframe my goals and priorities in more achievable ways.

I'll admit I'm a sucker for buying shiny new things as a way of avoiding JUST DOING THE THING. And I normally tend not to like to set new year resolutions in January (I prefer September).

But something about this January feels like a pretty good time for a planning/goal-setting reset.

It's amazing how one small change can influence every single day.

Is bread sauce on your festive menu?

Image credit: BBC Good Food

If you’re not from the UK, you may not have heard of bread sauce. You may be wondering what on earth it is and when you’d eat it.  

If you are in the UK, you may have strong opinions about it. In my empirical research (asking people I’ve seen recently) about bread sauce uptake, it’s a bit of a ‘marmite’ issue. People tended to react quite strongly: either with a ‘erm, no way would that make it onto my plate’ or a ‘oh definitely, it’s a Christmas staple’.

So what is it? Bread sauce is just what it sounds like. Bread(crumbs) made into a sauce. More specifically a thick sauce made of stale breadcrumbs and milk, infused with onion, bay leaves and cloves. It looks a bit like porridge (see photo).

It doesn’t sound that appetising for lunch, does it? It’s so curiously British.

You serve bread sauce the same way as you would gravy and cranberry sauce – it’s an accompaniment. In my opinion, it adds something valuable to the (quite bland) turkey.

I’m in the ‘oh definitely’ camp, and so is Nigella Lawson. So I’m in good company. It’s always there on our lunch table on 25 December, but I’m not sure anyone else at the table covets it like I do.

I keep coming back to it each year, finding its spices and consistency strangely comforting.

Let’s be clear: bread sauce offers almost no nutritional value. But it is cheap. It’s a great way to use up stale bread and other ingredients lying around. You can also make it up to three days in advance.

In case you wanted to know, bread sauce can be traced back to at least as early as the medieval ages, when cooks used bread as a thickening agent for sauces. According to the brilliantly named ‘The Past is a Foreign Pantry’ (subtitled ‘They dough things differently there’), ‘[Christmas] day is made or broken by the quality of the bread sauce.’ So there you go.

The Past is a Foreign Pantry also states that it should ‘taste creamy and mild, and ever so slightly fragrant’. Are you tempted to add to your festive menu yet?

In case you are tempted, here’s a recipe for a slightly more sophisticated version: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/bread-sauce-0

And please note: although bread sauce is not complicated to make, it cannot be rushed.

December traditions

Last Friday was my second-ever Christmas concert with my local singing group (we call ourselves The Local Vocals).

Last year I posted about it on LinkedIn, describing the experience as taking me way outside my comfort zone. But I also said that, despite my nerves, I got a real buzz from performing to the friendly faces in the audience.

I never planned to get involved in a choir – having never shown any interest in anything similar before. I never took part in school productions, and my one memory of singing on stage as a child still makes me cringe.

But in 2022 it just felt right to start this new hobby. Something that was completely detached from my usual life and interests, something that gave me an outlet from day-to-day work and life admin overwhelm. When we sing together, we just sing and we don’t think about anything else. It’s quite a mindful hobby and there’s a lot of value in that.

I’m fortunate to have some lovely friends who sing with me, and the whole choir feels like a warm community of different ages and personalities.

Do the thing

Performing is still outside my comfort zone. I would class myself as an introvert with a strong dislike for the limelight, so standing up in front of an audience still makes me tremble a bit.

But in 2023 I’ve been pushing the boundaries of what I formerly considered my comfort zone in so many ways. By making performing at a concert a recurring thing – something that I just ‘do’, it felt completely natural.

It’s a tradition and I look forward to doing it again next year.

Our next outing will be singing Christmas carols around our village to raise money for charity, before moving on to the local pub to sing some more. Watch out, (local) world!

Do you have any traditions that you look forward to?

Do you love singing like me?

Hi, I’m Philippa and I’m a translator and copy-editor.

I take Spanish, French and Portuguese (and English!) content and transform it into snappy and 100% engaging English.

I love to bring clarity to other people's writing and helping to share it with the world.

I love to work with people who are making the world a better place.

Small is Sublime: What Buying From A Big Brand Taught Me About Customer Service

The power of small

Just imagine. You know your purpose and your mission. You care deeply about the message you want to share with the world, and you know the impact you want to make.

You find a translation or editing professional who has the same values at heart and who wants to help you achieve results.

You seem like a good match, and you’re tempted to trust them with your content.

But hang on, is a solopreneur or micro-business really a safe pair of hands?

Wouldn’t it be more reassuring to work with a bigger company that can offer lots of hands?

What if the freelancer is uncontactable for hours? What if they make a mistake? What will you do if that happens?

Let me reassure you that, in lots of cases, you’d be wise to trust a small business over a bigger player. By staying purposely small that teeny business might just offer the agile response and flexibility you need.

Easy is not always effortless

I’ve been there. I’ve often gone with a bigger company because I thought that would make things easier.

This summer, we ordered some shutters to be fitted in our home. We were pressed for time and we didn’t want to spend time researching different local businesses, so we just went with a big brand offering shutters (along with 101 other things). We popped into their store and went to their dedicated ‘shutters, blinds and curtains’ desk. You’d think that desk would be staffed, right?

It wasn’t. With nobody on the desk (which seems a wasted opportunity, given how much retail space this dedicated area was taking up), we had to try to get someone’s attention.

Who cares wins

When we finally found a reluctant sales rep, she told me she didn’t really know anything about shutters or any of their fitting service. Erm, OK.

She asked other staff, but they just shrugged. Making the best of a less-than-ideal situation, the sales rep stuffed some brochures into our hands, saying we should go online and place an order.

We continued on this path because we still didn’t want to invest time in finding an alternative. We wanted to save ourselves the hassle.

To be fair, the online ordering process was quick. What we didn’t yet know was that this was just a placeholder. We would need to have three Teams calls to explain what we wanted. And only then would a fitter come out to measure up.

Fess up, don’t mess up

The person who measured up was a nice guy, and that part was simple. But then, lo and behold, another Teams call was needed to discuss the order further. Every time we ended these Teams calls, my husband and I would exchange bewildered looks, unsure of the call’s purpose. The priority, it seemed, was full payment up front.

The fitting day finally arrived (about three weeks AFTER paying in full, mind you). The fitter went about their work, only to discover at the end that the final panel of shutters was in a completely different colour. So now we have two-tone shutters that look ridiculous.

At least our neighbours have something to laugh about.

Mistakes happen. I get that. Somewhere in the ordering process, a ball got dropped. People are only human. But here’s the thing: after the mistake happened, we heard nothing further from this company.

We felt this was a pretty big mistake. We hadn’t received what we had ordered and paid for.

But we didn’t feel like anyone was owning it, which in turn meant that we didn’t feel valued as customers.

I emailed to politely ask what would happen next. The reply came in the form of a four-word sentence explaining that the replacement shutters were on order. The end. The tone was ‘please go away now’ (the sender probably had another Teams call 😂). There was no apology or promise of a personal assurance that the mistake would be rectified.

The result for us? We don’t even know when we will receive what we actually ordered. Plus an unwelcome dose of frustration and hair-pulling despair.

Responsiveness + passion = results

One thing that always hits me hard about this sort of customer experience catastrophe is that a small business in my industry just wouldn’t let this happen. It’s not that minor mistakes don’t ever happen but, as I said in a LinkedIn comment recently, solopreneur translators and copy-editors are incredibly responsive when it comes to correcting mistakes. If a mistake happens, we fess up and we fix it. It really is that simple. How’s that for easy?

Plus, when you work with an experienced freelancer or a small business, you usually get to deal directly with the person actually doing the translating or editing. This means that, if you have a question or a problem, you get direct access to the decision-maker in the business: no endless calls to arrange the next call, no robotic emails disclaiming any responsibility.

We freelancers take responsibility for every single project we work on because we ARE our business. The buck stops with us.

Someone who actually cares

Your own organisation may be big, medium or small, it doesn’t matter. A small business or freelancer is often a safer pair of hands and they care deeply about getting things just right.

A crucial advantage that smaller businesses have over larger companies is their ability to connect one-on-one with their clients and then customise their services. We’re the flexible, responsive antidote to a one-size-fits-all service, making things easier.

You can easily reach us at the end of the phone to discuss things. No need to wait for someone else to ask us to call you back. Or join a Teams call.

The result for you? Perfectly pitched English that hits the exactly right note with your English-speaking audience – whether that’s donors, investors, partners and other stakeholders.

Your message goes confidently out into the world, working its magic. ✨

I’m Philippa and I’m a translator and copy-editor.

I take Spanish, French and Portuguese (and English!) content and transform it into snappy and 100% engaging English.

I love to bring clarity to other people's writing and helping to share it with the world.

I love to work with people who are making the world a better place.

Interested in English writing tips, updates and insights? Why not sign up to my newsletter.