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Working at home is a great thing. It’s Sunday morning and I’m sitting in my garden wondering what I’m going to do for the rest of the day. I consider this to be a privilege, but if you’re not careful it can be a curse. Stuff happens, things get in the way. Here’s 5 time wasters and ways to avoid them.
Constantly checking email
You’d probably want to know if you’d won the lottery, but do you really want to know what Amazon is recommending straight away? Determine what is important and filter your email. Have a mailbox for clients for example, one for email newsletters or whatever you consider important. Then designate times in the day to look at email. Do you really need it to be on ALL the time? [click to continue…]
Here’s a question for you. If you’re self-employed, do you think you don’t have a boss or are you the boss?
The difference is quite important. Not having a boss means you work when you want doesn’t it? It means you set the agenda, there’s no-one to tell you what to do and what not to do.
Does that suit your customers? Do you turn up for work when you feel like it or when your customers expect you to be there? Do you deliver your work when you get the time (and invent an excuse as to why it’s late) or do you deliver on time or even early?
I came across this video today, via chrisbrogan.com. The subject matter isn’t important, but have a look, the message is.
Clever isn’t it? There’s no more slouching for us now. We’ve got to deliver.
If you want to be bought by Amazon (or anyone else for that matter), get up early, be on time and BE THE BOSS. As Pete Townshend said (yes, in a different context), “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”.
I wasn’t really sure where I stood in the automatic tweet/real tweet debate. There may have been a productivity argument for tweeting automatically sometimes. But one of Chris Brogan’s tips in 50 Power Twitter tips put it nicely:
“Robot tweets are less sexy than human tweets”.
Tweet automatically if you want to, but don’t expect it to make you sound any better.
This is my office. The photos are from my iPhone, so they have, let’s say, an artisan quality. A workspace is a very personal thing for freelancers and home workers. We surround ourselves with things we like and things to make us more efficient. I have light, as much space as I can, Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock to help inspire me.
In a moment of self-indulgence I decided to interview myself about my workspace. I asked myself what was my ideal workspace and how did I work? [click to continue…]
It’s amazing how time flies. It seems like just five minutes since Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher each contrived to miss a penalty against Portugal in the 2006 FIFA World Cup (c) as we must now call it to send England crashing out in quarter final glory.
Now it’s already South Africa 2010 and we’re ready to go through the whole thing again. For at least the first two weeks there’ll be three games a day to distract freelancers and home workers and prevent them from getting anything done. If you hate the whole jamboree you’re lucky, just turn the television and the radio off and you you can ignore it all. If you’ve more than a passing interest, you’ll need help combining work and distraction. And getting some work done. [click to continue…]
Like a lot of blogs and sites, this is a one contributor affair. I come up with the ideas for the content, I write and maintain it and I do the Wordpess and Thesis customisation.
Whilst doing that, I give it my tone and personality. I like to write in what I think us a relaxed but intelligent style because that’s how I perceive myself. I write about things I like again because they reflect my business and to some extent my personal life. I am however discreet because it would be easy to put off potential clients and buyers by being too touchy-feely or by moaning too much. [click to continue…]
Earlier in the month I compiled a playlist for the car that was unashamedly 1970s. It was full of stuff I could turn up loud and sing out of tune to with no fear of reprisals. I can’t tell you how good that drum section and Herbie Flowers’ bass sounds on Nilsson’s Jump into the Fire on Nilsson Scmilsson sounds flying down the motorway. Or Led Zeppelin’s Rain Song or anything by Bad Company or Free. Old hippies never die I suppose, they just get nostalgic from time to time.
But just to prove I don’t live in a time warp, this month’s playlist of music I work with is rather electronic. And thanks to Stuart Maconie and those great people at emusic, the month has been at bit expensive as well. [click to continue…]
It started on a whim. I was bored one day. I wanted some fun. The rain was pelting down so I had no real desire to go out. I was a long way from my deadline for the work so I found myself meandering across the Internet. I don’t know what inspired me to play the lottery. I don’t do it very often and in my more lucid moments I think of it as a tax on the aspirations of the poor. But then again, I’m a money tart just like anyone else. [click to continue…]
I’m part of a generation that didn’t learn to type as a teenager. There were no computers around and typing courses were for secretaries, exclusively girls (disclaimer: we’re talking 1970s here). I ”learnt” on a Hoverspeed VDU in a previous life as a travel agent. I then fumbled through a few years working in travel on reservation systems that didn’t really require typing skills, just a few lines of commands that never changed. I didn’t do any word processing so I could get away with it. [click to continue…]
When I first started translating, I was told that there were two types of translator. The specialists and the hungry. The reasoning being that, as individuals, we can’t be expected to cover all subjects and specialisms. This applies to all types of freelancer. Major corporations often have problems when they overstretch into areas they don’t master and then have do embarrassing U-turns to focus on their “core” business. So us poor freelancers have no chance! [click to continue…]
Working at home is a great thing. It’s Sunday morning and I’m sitting in my garden wondering what I’m going to do for the rest of the day. I consider this to be a privilege, but if you’re not careful it can be a curse. Stuff happens, things get in the way. Here’s 5 time wasters and ways to avoid them.
