time management

Inspiration and Motivation/ Productivity/Time Management

Top Tips to Finding Time to Work At Home

LTruex productivity, time management 0 Comment July 2, 2018

These time management tips will help you achieve work-at-home success!

One of the most common excuses I hear from people struggling to work at home is that they don’t have time. The reality is everyone has time. What is lacking is commitment, focus, and time management.

You won’t be able to build a sustainable work-at-home career in the bits and pieces of free time during your day. This is especially true if you’d like to be working at home sooner rather than later. Like any other goal, you need to put time and effort toward it to achieve it.

If you feel like time is tight, here are some tips to help.

Determine How Much Time You Need

The amount of time you need to give to your fledgling home based career will depend on what you want to do. If you want a work at home job, you have to search and apply to jobs. That requires a different amount of time than starting a blog, selling items online, or starting a service based business.

Figuring out the time you need requires that you know what tasks you need to do and a good idea of how much time they take.

Decide How Bad You Want to Work At Home

Do you REALLY want to work at home or does it just sound like a nice thing to do? I’m on several work at home groups in which many people post how badly they want to work at home, but then they gravitate toward questionable work-at-home options that sound like there’s no work involved. If you’re looking for fast and easy, you’re better off to stay in your regular job. I’ve met hundreds of people who work at home successfully, and none of them signed up for fast and easy.

Here’s the important thing to realize….

Your ability to make time to work at home will be related to how badly you want to work at home.

Do you want to work from home bad enough to skip TV watching to do a job search or figure out how to start a home business? While your life may be busy, there is always time to do what you want if you really want it. But you may have to sacrifice hobbies or other time, or force yourself to work when you’d rather relax.

Best Ways to Make Time for Your Work-At-Home Goal

You now what you need to do and how much time you need. And you’re committed to making the time to get it done. Here are the best ways to fit in time for your work-at-home goal.

Do a time audit. To figure out where you might have time, you need to know where your time is going. Don’t guess at this. Studies show that most people underestimate the time they spend on activities. Keep a log of everything…how much time do you take to get ready in the morning, eating breakfast, commuting, spending time on social media, etc?
Decide on tasks you can reduce or eliminate. Do you watch 3 hours of TV a day? What if you didn’t do that at all? Or cut it down to 1 hour.
Determine what tasks can be automated or hacked to use less time. This can be tasks related to working at home (i.e. setting up email alerts from work at home job search sites), or in other areas of your life (i.e. using a Crockpot to make dinner.) Tools and systems can be a huge time saver.
Figure out tasks you can delegate. Like the tasks you can reduce or eliminate, delegated tasks can be those related to your work at home endeavor (i.e. hiring someone to build your website) or daily tasks (getting a family member to do the laundry or cook dinner).
Sleep less. Studies show that sleep is important, so you don’t want to cut your snooze time to unhealthy levels. With that said, staying up an hour later or getting up an hour earlier can give you more time. Most of the successful people in the world are early risers. I’m not a morning person, but I’ll admit that when I get up early, I get a ton done before noon. You might be interested in checking out The Morning Miracle for tips on getting up earlier to get more done.

Making Time for your Work At Home Goal

So now you know what you need to do, how much time it will take, and you’ve found ways to put more time in your day. The next step is to maximize your time. You can do that by:

Have a goal for each day. For example, “Submit 5 resumes,” or “Complete profile on freelance site,” or “Call city about business licensees.”
Have a to-do list to start each day. Ideally you should do this list the night before. Based on your goals, write down the tasks that need to be done to reach them.
Block out time to do your work-at-home tasks. Be realistic about the amount of time it will take. Also, guard the time. Don’t let something else slip in and take up the time you committed to work on your goal.
Don’t multitask. You may think you’re saving time, but in fact, multitasking can waste time because of the focus adjustment time it takes to go back and forth. Focus on one to-do and when it’s done move to the next.
Use a timer. It is possible to get so focused you lose a sense of time. If you need to stick to the schedule, set a timer for each task or your work block.

Success working at home comes from focused, consistent effort. While you can’t build a career on a few minutes a day, it doesn’t take a lot of time necessarily to make significant progress. As little an hour a day can be a great start. What you can’t do is be haphazard about your efforts. You can spend an hour one day, two hours three days later, and ten minutes the next week. Making time each day will make your work-at-home tasks habit, and will give you the momentum you need to start seeing results faster.

Do you have any time management tips? Let us know in the comments below.

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Business Tips/ Expert Tips/ Productivity/Time Management

Goal Setting For Your Home Business: WAH Experts Weigh In

LTruex Expert Tips, organization, productivity, time management 0 Comment January 6, 2017

It’s a brand-new year, so what better time to take a step back and evaluate your business goals? What do you want to do this year? How successful do you want to be? Goals are so important when working from home, so we asked these experts to give their best advice on how they set goals for themselves, and their businesses.

Erica McCurdy of McCurdy Life Coach, LLC knows a thing or two about planning and goal setting. Here’s what she advises:

1) Be accountable to yourself. While accountability is great in theory, nobody will or should care as much about achieving your goals as you do (or should). Make your goals something you care enough about to get them done. If you don’t get them done – or don’t even try, you need to reconsider why you are setting those tasks as goals in the first place.

2) Be honest with yourself. YOU are the last person with whom you should ever be dishonest. If you are not committed to the goals you are setting, there is probably something in those goals that is not authentic to who you are, where you want to be and how hard you want to work.

3) Break your goals into things you can accomplish each day. It’s OK to mix personal and professional goals – especially when you work from home. Just make sure you keep yourself balanced and focus on your work enough to keep moving forward. Remember, if a goal is too big to take a step in a single day, break your goal into it’s smaller components and make those steps your new goals.

Tim Carr from WP Cube has these awesome tips to add!

Use a daily planner tool the night before to set your goals and reflect on the day, so you can see achievable progress.
Complete the most difficult tasks first, while you have energy early in the day.
Use the pomodoro technique to divide your time up into small, focused chunks.

Lisa Chastain is the owner of Lisa Chastain Coaching, helping people organize their lives for a living! Here is her advice on goal setting:

1. Have a “regular work schedule” – the MOST important thing I do (even though some days I’m in my pajamas) is stick to a regular work schedule. I keep my hours consistent so I always know when I’m going to get work done.

2. Exercise regularly! Working for home is even more stressful at times than working in an office. The pressure is on to stay clear and focused and the exercise keeps the creativity and endorphins going..

3. Nothing domestic gets done during “work hours”. Don’t get distracted by home responsibilities during the time you’ve set your work hours. Maximize the time you’re not spending by commuting and be responsible with the time you designate to work – and stick to it!

Joe Battisto of Haven Environmental LLC uses these ideas to keep his business on track.

1) Break down the goal into weekly, daily, hourly chunks (baby steps, lots of them), you will be able to feel the time clock running , and hopefully use the time, better

2) Stay dissatisfied with your progress, no matter how good, then use that as motivation to go faster.

3) Make sure your mental picture of your goal is crystal clear (sign up 1 new account per week, make 1 dollar more than last week, etc)

Jennifer Dawn owner of Best Planner Ever keeps on track using these simple ideas!

jennifer-dawn

1) Set shorter goals for 90 days (or less). Setting goals past 90 days has been shown to actually increase procrastination

2) Set just one big 90 day goal. When you are trying to move multiple projects forward at a time, you lose tons of productivity by switching back and forth.

3) Create a clear strategy around your goals. Break them into smaller week long “projects” and then into specific tasks. Don’t just launch into being busy, busy. Take time to plan out your projects first.

Amber Slaughter from The Life Architect uses these ideas to keep her business running smoothly to achieve her goals.

Visualize Your Business Goals – Be very descriptive in your visualization like how much money you’ll make in your business, what will that money allow you to do, what will your life be like when you achieve your business goals, what will your day be like and what will you do with your time.
Protect Your Time – Set your business hours and calendar and don’t let friends or family distract you from your daily goals. That may mean saying no to lunch with a friend, not focusing on the laundry that needs to be done, what dishes are in the sick or what else needs to be done around the house.
Leverage the 80/20 Rule – Focus 20% of your efforts on the tasks that will produce 80% of your results

Tips from Leslie: For me, the biggest challenge of goals are 1) breaking them down into action steps and 2) plotting out the to-dos on my calendar. But these two tasks are important for turning a goal into a reality. A goal without a plan and daily action is just a wish.

Another challenge is turning your new goal-tasks into a habit. It’s too easy to go back to life as usual, which is why most people have completely abandoned their goal by February.

Make sure you own the goal and that you’re not trying to do it for someone else. Passion and desire are crucial for success. If you’re working on a goal because you think you should or your spouse wants you to, you won’t be as motivated as if the goal is a burning passion inside you.

Finally, track your progress. Goals take time and it can feel like you’re spinning your wheels getting no where. If you track what you’ve done and the results you’re getting, you can see your progress which motivates you to keep on keepin’ on.

Business Tips/ Expert Tips/ Productivity/Time Management/ Telecommuting Tips & Resources

Work-At-Home Expert Tips: Managing Your Workflow

LTruex Expert Tips, productivity, time management 0 Comment November 25, 2016

One of the key ingredients to success for anyone that works from home, is being able to manage your workflow. If you can’t stay on top of your tasks, you will lose money! No one wants that, right? So this edition of Expert Tips is chock-full of amazing advice on staying organized and managing your workflow! Enjoy!

Sarah Cantu from Tech Talent South shares these awesome tips!

My top tip is to have a visual guide to your current tasks. I do a pretty lo-fi version of a Trello board with some old-fashioned sticky notes. This gives me a summary of what I need to do but also what I’ve accomplished, which always contributes to my daily motivation!

My second tip is to focus as much as possible on preparing for a single task, even in the smallest of ways. For example, I have a certain number of outreach emails that I aim send out every week and if I try to source, edit, and compose say, 50 emails at once I can get distracted by flipping through different web pages, editing emails, etc. To maximize my productivity, I focus on one small part of that task at a time, like sourcing all of my contacts’ email addresses, before I ever actually open Gmail. The more that I repeat a single task, the more efficiently I work, so I try to break things down as much as possible.

Finally, I recommend allotting time to answer your emails, even if you’re one to open them as you receive them. I’m a little too anxious to not open an email as soon as I see it, but I do my best to resist the urge to reply right away. Composing emails can be a bit of a time suck, so I will typically use the “create task” feature on Gmail or set a reminder via Boomerang to reply to an email that’s not quite as pressing.

Alex Novkov from Kanbanize has these tips to help you out!

1. Visualize every step of the process. In order to maintain a steady and well-paced flow, the team needs to know who is doing what and how long is it taking. Using a Kanban board is a simple solution that can be applied in practically every industry. The board will show the bottlenecks of the process and the team can take action to alleviate them.
2. Limit the work in progress. Stop starting and start finishing. A person doing one thing at a time is far more efficient than one multitasking. Not only the tempo is faster, but the quality of work is increased significantly this way.
3. Adopt daily stand-up meetings. Each team should meet once a day at the beginning of the work shift or at any convenient time, for a brief stand-up meeting. Every person has to share what she or he did during the previous day and what she or he intends to do today. The meeting should not last more than fifteen minutes and the idea is to keep everyone in the loop about existing and potential problems that are troubling some of the team members.

Beth Beutler from HOPE Unlimited has these great and easy to do, tips for you!

1. Interval timer apps can help you stay on track with a series of
timed segments you can apply to a project for ongoing progress.

2. A small dry erase board is a great tool…jot quick notes that can
be erased and avoid piles of sticky notes on your desk

3. When scheduling appointments, make sure to allow cushion. If you are
just returning from a trip on Sunday, you may not want appointments first
thing Monday morning.

Lena Requist, President of ONTRAPORT manages her workflow with these tips:

Tip #1: Establish ground rules for yourself, including a promise that you won’t let your work life seep over into your home life. At the end of the day, turn off your computer and phone and resist the temptation to check your work email on your device. By giving your mind a break at the end of each work day, you’re investing in your future focus and productivity.

Tip #2: Build repeatable processes. Rather than constantly building a job by the sweat of your brow, create systems. By building systems you are able to offer consistency in the products or services you deliver, even after the system is delegated.

Tip #3: Learn to delegate – and train employees. Knowing when to hand off a project or task is vital to managing your workflow long-term. Human potential is truly remarkable, and by effectively delegating, you will be able to streamline redundant tasks, in turn, freeing you to focus on more creative and engaging initiatives that will propel your business forward.

Tips from Leslie:

As someone who juggles multiple “jobs,” managing the work is crucial. Although much of my work and tools are online, I still seem to do best with a paper planner. Each Sunday, I go through and right down my daily to-dos for the week, and schedule in tasks on long-term projects, appointments and other things that are going on during the week. Because my schedule doesn’t fit traditional planners, I like using the Happy Planner.

As far as the work, although my day can be flexible, I can move through it quicker if I have a routine, so each day I write first, then work on whatever blog is scheduled for that day, do client work, and then move on to marketing tasks such as scheduling social media, pitching media for guest posts or interviews.

Finally, I do have a virtual assistant to help me take care of tasks and I’m slowly adding more to her list. Right now she finds, prepares and posts several blog features a week. All I have to do is check them and add my two-bits if I feel it’s needed. Delegating busy work or tasks I don’t like to do has been great in letting me focus on the tasks that make money.

Featured/ Productivity/Time Management

Expert Tips: What is your favorite time management tip or tool?

LTruex organization, productivity, time management 0 Comment April 22, 2016

If you never seem to have enough time to do all the things that need to be done, more efficient use of time and use of tools and systems can help. This week, I asked work-at-home experts to share their opinions and advice on time management.

Tricia Sciortino, eaHELP

Have a designated work space, even when working from home. When you work in an office setting, you need a space that’s relatively distraction-free to do your best work. That doesn’t change when you work from home. Ideally, it’s best to use a separate room as a home office where the door can be closed. However, even a designated corner of your bedroom or living room will do the trick. Avoid your couch and bed – they’re super comfy, but won’t help you get into a proper frame of mind for a productive work day.

Have an “off” time. Those who work remotely struggle to “leave” the office since they can’t actually leave the office. It’s important to set up work boundaries and be mindful of when your work day begins and ends. Try to avoid ‘work creep’ into your dinner, weekends and family time. This practice will help you avoid burnout.

Respect your work as your full-time day job. Believing you can care for and interact with your roommates, spouses and children while working remotely is doing a disservice to yourself, your clients and your employer. While working from home offers tremendous flexibility, it still needs to be treated as important work. There’s no way to focus on your children and your job full-time and remain productive. Seek out a babysitter or daycare service and make sure work is the sole focus for a few hours every day.

Han Chang, InvestmentZen
For time management, my biggest tip is to spend 15-30min at the end of each day to go over what you want to accomplish the next day and write it down. Make sure it’s written with pen and paper where it’s impossible to miss the next day (not on a file on a computer, too distracting!).

Here’s the crucial part – circle the most important thing to do; you’ll know because you’re probably hesitant to start on it. Then commit to doing that thing as the first task of the day next morning! Once that’s ingrained as a habit, magical things start happening…

Also, I use RescueTime as a time tracking system to measure productivity, and review it weekly to figure out what’s distracting me and also when my most/least productive times of day are and plan accordingly!

Barry Maher, Barry Maher & Associates

My favorite time management tool? Simply spending a few minutes at the end of every day planning the next day, then a few minutes every morning reviewing that plan, saves far more than 20 minutes each and every day.

Simon Slade, Doubledot Media

Try to perceive stress as an alarm that needs to be turned off. Stress alerts you that you are not operating effectively, so use this warning to make changes. Recognize that stress may mean you don’t have enough time to complete every task perfectly, so give yourself permission to complete tasks adequately rather than perfectly. Each time you experience this stress and have to reduce the quality of your work, make a mental note to designate at least one task to someone else. Stress is only negative if you react negatively to it. It can also be used constructively.”

Jamila T Jeffers, J T Jeffers

Self-Management is an umbrella term that I use to encompass Time Management, Productively, efficiency.

I started my business last year but I think of my business as 1 year old with 10 year’s experience.

My favourite Time Management tip of 2016 is ‘Say No more’, We say ‘yes’ to stuff that just makes us busy, often in an attempt to be liked, or to impress others. But in the end we waste time and effort, while not getting any closer to our own goals.

Mark Aselstine, Uncorked Ventures

I use Evernote at this point fairly extensively. I found that I was keeping different to-do lists for work, the kids, home projects etc etc. Having a pretty clear and concise place to keep track of notes, as well as, what’s coming up helps keep me organized and my time managed quite a bit better.

Bob Littell, NetWeaving International

The Grand Daddy of all time management is the classic work by Alan Lakein, “How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life” published back in 1974. He introduced the concept of the A’s, B’s, and C’s.

The A’s are those things that are most ‘important’ . Usually they are more complex and longer-term in nature and they’re the ones we tend to put off saying we need more time to focus on them.

The B’s are those things that are ‘important’ but not nearly as important as the A’s and they tend to have some ‘sense of urgency’ about them.
The C’s are those items that are neither that important or even that urgent. They’re those gnat-biting things that we need to get done and are fairly short-term in nature.

With our limited ‘windows of time’, we tend to finish the week by knocking out a nice list of C’s; work on a few B’s, and get little or nothing accomplished on our A’s.

Lakein’s two tips include: 1) constantly ask yourself, “What’s the best use of my time?” 2) “When in doubt, CHIP at an A!”. That’s the saying by which I try to live my life.

Start your week out by first looking at your A’s and decide what bite-sized piece or pieces of my A’s can I knock out this week and don’t do anthing toward working on a B or a C until you have finished that portion of your A. What often happens is that once you get started working on just a small piece of your A, you tend to get wrapped up in it and spend a great deal more time than you had expected. That’s how you get the most important things accomplished.

Elena Lockett, FM Outsource

We are currently using daPulse to help both our in office and outreach staff with their time management. daPulse is a project management tool which allows members of the team to add their own tasks and change the status depending on what is happening. It provides management with a view to who has spare time and who needs help. Especially with outreach, it helps attribute where their hours are going when they work, as they need to actually put a status next to tasks. This makes sure employees are also aware of how long a task tasked, before filling their shift in with tasks. For example, an employee may start by adding lots of tasks to one day and then realise they do not physically have the time. That is when they will start managing their time better and either spread their tasks across various days or spend less time on certain tasks/delegate to other members of the team.

Sam Williamson, Aims Media Glasgow

Trying to manage your time effectively in a modern office environment can be difficult, as opportunities and problems that need to be dealt with immediately can arise at any time and procrastination can be difficult to overcome. Fortunately, there are a few simple tricks that you can implement to ensure that you use the time that you have as effectively as possible.

The hardest part of the day is the lead up to lunch, and one of my favorite tricks to get through this lagging period is ’20 minute sprints’. Set an alarm on your phone or watch for 20 minutes, and work continuously until it rings. Once it does ring, stop what you’re doing immediately and take a 10 minute break, which you should also set an alarm for. This approach doesn’t try to avoid procrastination, it actually uses it as a reward. I find this extremely motivating and have no problem getting my work completed using this approach.

Robin Martinelli, Martinelli Investigations Inc

My biggest tip to stay focus an work hard is balance. You have to tell yourself their is a day each week I am taking for myself. Hiring great people an email me back or call and I can tell you some tools to help.

Scott Sherwood, TestLodge

Automate as much as possible. Whatever profession you may be in, you can only work so many hours in one day, so making sure you spend this time on the things that actually matter and make the difference is very improvement. Automating those recurring tasks that you may have to do day after day can be a huge time saver when you consider how much time you may spend on them over a full month / year.

Leah Thurber, LeahCompany
There are a lot of effective habits that people should possess. One of the most effective traits of the most successful people is being productive. And I can’t disagree with the idea that if you learn how to manage your time, the world will be in your hands. Productivity is one of the most important skills that everyone should possess. All of the best ideas are nothing without productivity that will turn them in real successful results. And time management is an unavoidable part of productivity. This is a skill that will last a lifetime, no matter what else must be learned.

There are a lot of various time management tips, but I’d like to mention the most important ones. First and foremost, you should set work hours for yourself just as if you were in an office. They can be broken up, but set aside a good 6-7 hours a day for actual productive work. And no personal phone calls or interruptions while you’re working. It is very important to plan what you’re going to do – “To-Do” list. Either before you go to sleep at night or first thing in the morning you need to plan each day. Moreover, it is far better not just plan what to do, but prioritize well that helps you not to move to #2 until #1 is accomplished. To be productive means to budget your time well, focus on the tasks at hand, and complete them on time. Plan your day activity in the right way and conquer the world.

Note from Leslie: As someone who likes to juggle many varying projects, I can attest to many of the time saving tricks mentioned above. At the same time, I think time management is a personal issue. What works for me, may not work for you. I work in the digital world, but I find I do best with paper planners. For many years, I created my own planning sheets because I couldn’t find a planner that best suited my needs. Recently, I discovered the Mother’s Organizer from Plan Ahead. I am a mom, but I don’t use it as a mom’s organizer. I use it to help me plan all the projects I have. Instead of putting my children’s names in the spots for kids activities, I put my projects; Misc/Appt, WAHS, DWS, About.com, LT (my personal site), and fiction writing. Then, by each day of the week, I fill in what I have to do for those days, such as social media, email, write a post, etc. I found this planner by chance at my local CVS, but you can get it at Amazon as well.

planner

Along with a written planner, some other tools and tricks I use to get through my daily to-dos include:

CoSchedule plugin to schedule social media at the same time I work and schedule my blog post.
Hootsuite to share and schedule other types of social media across platforms.
Virtual assistants to take care of some of the busy work.

4 Steps to Starting a Home Business When You Still Have a JOB

Featured/ Home Business Tips and Tools/ Productivity/Time Management

4 Steps to Start a Home-Based Business When You Still Have a J-O-B

Alicia Jay home business, time management, work at home 0 Comment January 21, 2016

You’re working at a full-time job that you don’t love and you’ve been daydreaming about a home-based business that allows you to live the lifestyle that you really want. But how do you make those dreams a reality? Where do you start?

If you really want to pursue your home-based business but you’re feeling overwhelmed, take some time to answer these questions.

1. How badly do you want this?

Mindset is important here. Think about other times in your life when you’ve wanted something very much, you worked hard, and then you’ve gotten it.

Maybe you really wanted to graduate high school or college, and you did it.
Maybe you really wanted that house or apartment, and you got it.
Maybe there was a certain kind of car that you just had to have, and now you’re driving it.
Maybe you wanted more than anything to have a certain position at work, and you were promoted.

You get the idea.

If these things happened for you, then how did you get there?

Think back to what you had to do to achieve those successes and repeat them with your home-based business. Repeat what works.

2. What’s your “why?”

What is your big reason for really wanting a home-based business?

And don’t just say that you want to make money. It goes deeper than that. What will that money do for you?

Maybe it will allow you the flexible schedule you’ve always wanted.
Maybe it will give you the time you desire with your family.
Maybe you’ll be able to pack up and travel on a whim.
Maybe you’ll be able to pay down your debt.

Whatever it is for you, write it down. Now put it somewhere that you’ll see it every day. When things get rough, look at your “why” and it will help to re-motivate you.

3. What steps do you need to take to make this a reality?

Think about every single step you will need to take along the way and write them all down.

Perhaps you want to create and sell an info product. Then some of your steps might be to research your idea and target market, flesh out an outline, decided what medium you’ll present the content in, choose a platform to host that content, and where and how you will sell the product.

Maybe you want to make money blogging. Some of your steps might include researching a topic, creating the website, choosing a theme and layout and writing blog posts.

Those are just some ideas. Think about your home-based business and write down all the steps you’ll need to take to make it a reality.

4. When are you going to work on your business?

Now comes the part when you plan out and schedule the time to actually work on that list that you made.

You might be struggling here because you have so many other commitments. Maybe you’re still working your full-time job or you are raising your family. I get it. We’re all busy. But we all have the same 24 hours in a day.

This is why it’s so important to create a plan and schedule that works for you. Maybe you decide to get up one hour earlier each day to work on your business. Maybe you fit in two hours at night when the kids are in bed. Maybe you give up some TV or computer time and swap that for business building time.

Figure out some blocks of time that will work for you and put them on your calendar as your business building time. As you’re moving through your day, when that time block pops up in your schedule, grab your list of things that need to be done and pick one to three things. Now you have a plan of what you’ll work on during your business building time block.

Is it going to be hard? Yes. Are you going to be really busy? Yes.

But think about it this way.

Before you know it, you’re crossing things off your list and moving on to new things. Consistency is key here. Don’t get overwhelmed by all the steps ahead of you. Just focus on the next time block that you have and the tasks you want to get accomplished in that time. Progress WILL happen this way.

By making the commitment and putting in the effort now, if your goal is to ultimately run your business full-time and drop your J-O-B, this is going to pay off in the long run. Slow and steady wins the race. If you work on your business in small increments each week, you WILL see progress.

8 Time Management Tips for Work-At-Home Moms

Featured/ Life Working At Home/ New Posts

8 Time mangement tips for WORK-AT-HOME MOMS

LTruex productivity, time management 2 Comments October 12, 2015

Time management is a real issue for moms that work from home.

Most of us are trying to build a successful business while balancing household chores and our growing families, the reason we decided to stay home.But it’s not easy working from home, especially if you have 7 children like me.Most days I feel like I’m running from one thing to the next without stopping to catch my breath. However, I find it quite rewarding at the end of the day when I am able to cross even two things off my list and get to spend the day with my adorable kids.Having a schedule is crucial but we all know with kids things don’t always go as planned. Between colds, stomach bugs, bumps and bruises and overtired children, we have to learn to roll with the punches.

HERE ARE A FEW THINGS I’VE FOUND THAT HELP ME MANAGE MY TIME WHILE WORKING FROM HOME WITH LITTLE ONES.

Tip #1: Establish a schedule. This really helps so that you can outline school times, meals, nap, errands and work.

Tip #2: When do you feel MOST productive? Figure out what time of the day you get that burst of energy. Is it in the morning around 10am? Or maybe right after lunch? Or perhaps you are a night owl?

Schedule the most important activities that you MUST get done during that time.

Tip #3: Use a timer. When you sit down to do a task set the timer. Turn off Facebook, Twitter, Email {aka time suckers} and focus on that one task. Give yourself 15 – 20 minutes to accomplishment and cross that item off your list.

Tip #4: Create a designated area for work and play. This is so important. I used to work from the dining room table but found I was disorganized and would get more distracted.

Tip #5: Use productivity apps. I don’t know about you but I live by my iPhone. All of my appointments, deadlines, school activities, etc. go into my calendar on my phone.

Tip #6: Identify daily time wasters; try to eliminate. We all have them. Maybe it’s the TV, the cell phone, or email.

What do you get distracted by? Identify these items and make sure to eliminate them as best as you can.

Tip #7: Make time for the kids. It’s so easy when you work from home to always be thinking about deadlines, emails you need to respond to, posts that need to be written and calls that need to be made.

Tip #8 : Reward yourself! Mothers have a hard job no matter if you work out of the house, in the home or do a little of both.

We need to stop every once in a while, step back and realize all that we accomplish in a day. It’s pretty incredible if you think about it.

We deserve a nice reward every once in a while to help relax and rejuvenate ourselves. It can be simply picking up a book we’ve been meaning to read, getting a nice pedicure, taking a long hot bath or maybe buying ourselves a new outfit. Whatever it is, don’t forget to pamper yourself.

Remember it’s impossible to do it all but with a little planning, organization and prioritizing, it can help make things more manageable.

3 Tips to Getting More Done Working At Home

Featured/ Life Working At Home/ Productivity/Time Management

3 Tips for How to Get More Done When Working at Home

Alicia Jay productivity, time management, work at home challenges, work at home tips 5 Comments October 8, 2015

I’m sure you can think of the many benefits of working from home: setting your own hours, no office commute, saving money on childcare, wearing sweatpants all day if you want to—the list goes on and on.

But when it comes down to getting actual work done, do you find yourself distracted at home? After all, there are chores to do. It’s really nice outside and the pool is calling your name. You want to know if there’s anything good on daytime TV. You’re thinking maybe you could use a three-hour nap. And then there’s Facebook. It sucks you right in!

If you find yourself distracted and not able to focus on the actual work in your “work at home” scenario, here are some tips on how to actually get things done:

#1: Avoid distractions

Only have in front of you anything that relates to exactly what you’re working on at that moment. This includes anything on your computer as well as pieces of paper, notebooks or other things that might be in your work space.

Close all apps and programs not in use for the task at hand on your computer.

Turn your phone off. If you have a little one at school or need your phone to be on for emergency reasons, at least turn off all notifications and put the phone somewhere that you can’t see the screen.

#2: Set boundaries

Make sure family, friends and neighbors know not to disturb you when you’re working. If you have an office, shut the door. If you have children, tell them exactly what time you’ll be finished with work, and that they will get your undivided attention at that time.

We also have a “no soliciting” sign in our front yard that prevents those random afternoon interruptions from sales people.

Here’s another little trick for you if you’re having problems establishing boundaries with people “dropping by” unexpectedly. This one works if you have small children at home with you during the day while you’re working. When my son was small and would take naps, I used to put a sign on our front door telling people that there was a child sleeping—and not to knock on the door or ring the bell unless it was an emergency. I quickly realized this sign also came in handy if I left it up during my work hours so that I wouldn’t be interrupted by anyone at the door!

#3: Stay focused

Set a timer for how long you want to work on a given task. Focus only on that task until the timer goes off.

Give yourself small breaks to get more water, a snack or to stretch for a bit.

Know your ideal times of day when you are most productive at certain activities. If you can’t work at your most ideal times, then make sure you have a list of exactly what you need to do and time blocks marked out in your schedule to complete things.

Create a list or schedule the day before for the next day’s tasks. When you’re ready to get started the next day, you can just refer to that list.

Featured/ Home Business Tips and Tools/ Technology

Best Phone Apps for Working At Home

LTruex apps, organization, productivity, technology, time management 0 Comment October 5, 2015

It goes without saying that you need a computer to successfully work at home, but I also believe that you should have a smartphone. I can’t tell you how many times having a smartphone saved my behind while I worked at home. When my power and/or Internet is out, I can get online through my phone. If I’m away from a computer, I can deal with business through my phone. My phone can store, log, track and do a ton of other things that allow me to work when I’m not able to get to a computer. Here are a few of my favorite (most used) smartphone apps:

Gmail: WAHS’s email is accessed through a pop account (I use Mail2Web.com on my phone), but all my other email is forwarded to my Gmail account. Along with sending and receiving email, I can sort and search email. Because it’s web-based, anything I do on my phone shows up on my computer and vise versa.

Evernote: This app has been a lifesaver. I can write or record notes, take screen shots of websites I want to refer back to, organize and search information in my notes and a whole lot more. Anyone who blogs or writes as part of their work-at-home career shouldn’t be without Evernote. Since it’s web-based, you can access it on your smart phone, computer, tablet and most other digital devices (I have it on my Nook, as well).

Google Calendar: When I had a Droid, I loved Google Calendar. Like Gmail, anything I did on my calendar on my computer, would show up on my phone and vise versa. When I first got my iPhone, it took some tech savvy to get Google Calendar on it. However, there is now an app for Google Calendar on iPhone. Other great features include creating multiple calendars (i.e. work and personal), color coding events, and sharing calendars with others.

WordPress: Nearly all of my websites are built on WordPress. Although the WordPress app for phones isn’t ideal for writing long posts, you can add and edit content, add photos and links. The WordPress app is available for iPhone and Android.

Dropbox: I don’t always like to work from my home computer. Dropbox lets me save my writing online and access it through other devises such as a laptop or my phone. The only caveat to using Dropbox on your phone is that you need an app to open the content. For example, if I want to open a Word doc, Dropbox will allow me to access it, but I also need an app to open it if I want to edit it.

Hootsuite: Instead of having an app for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, I can use Hootsuite to access them all. I can check my feed, mentions and post to any of my networks through one app. Hootsuite is also web-based, so I use it on my desktop as well. In fact, I have the hootlet in my browser so I can Tweet or share any webpage through the click on a button.

I’ve given you links to learn about each app, but you should be able to find the apps in the App Store or Google Play through your phone.

What apps can’t you live without?

Home Business Tips and Tools/ Home Office/ Productivity/Time Management

How to Avoid Working 24/7 from Home

LTruex home business, home office, productivity, time management 0 Comment January 21, 2015

There are many challenges to working from home. One is having the self-discipline to do the work without being distracted by stuff going on at home. The other is working all the time.

It’s not uncommon for home-based workers to put in more hours than they would at a job. Sometimes they’re focused on a project, but other times, the boss or clients are calling at all hours of the day needing help. It’s almost as if they think because your office is in your home, you can take care of stuff whenever, which is technically true, but not a good way to run your life. Here are tips to avoiding overworking from home.

Nearly all the suggestions you’ll see below have to do with setting boundaries and then enforcing them. It’s easy to set boundaries, but much harder to stick to them especially if your boss or client is calling. But if you give in, you’ll work too much, risk burn-out and likely begin to resent the people you work for.

1) Create a schedule and let everyone know about it. Your boss probably wouldn’t call you at home at night if you worked onsite, so it’s not unreasonable to expect him not to call during off hours when you work at home. If you freelance, let your clients know upfront your work hours. This is especially helpful if your clients are in a different time zone.

2) Develop a system for having clients contact you. As a customer, automated phone systems or online FAQ pages are annoying, but as a home-based worker, systems can be helpful to reducing interruptions and unnecessary questions. You may not have an automated phone system, but you should have a FAQ page on your site or send FAQ information when an email request comes in. You need to let clients know up front the best times and methods for getting in touch. Finally, give them a time frame for a response. This is challenging, because you want to be responsive to your clients’ needs, and yet you can’t spend your day putting out fires. Hiring a virtual assistant is a great way deliver quick customer support and have someone weed out the “emergencies” you need to respond to vs those that aren’t dire.

3) When you’re off, be off. That means don’t answer the phone or email. Turn off ringers and notifications so you’re not tempted to answer or worry about not answering. The only way others will respect your work hours and off time is if you stick to them.

4) When you’re on vacation, let your clients or boss know you’ll be gone and what they can do instead of calling you. That means you should have someone cover for you. Or if you plan to work on vacation, provide the short time frame they can expect to connect with you.