If you’ve ever priced office furniture, you know just how expensive some of those uber-cool desks, bookshelves, file cabinets, and chairs can be. If you’re thinking about telecommuting, defining your work-at-home space is essential. Creating a home office space, or upgrading your current work space, can cost a pretty penny. But guess what, you don’t have to spend a fortune to make your space functional and aesthetically pleasing.
In most cases, you’ll be spending quite a bit of money on hardware, software, and other work necessities. So remember, your home office workspace is all about your own productivity and comfort. Unless you’re an event planner or a photographer with a home office, your space probably won’t need to serve as a showcase business front and you’re probably not going to be sharing your space with too many people. Your home office is one place that can really be all about YOU and YOUR tastes.
My own home work space has gone through several evolutions over the past 14 years and I’ve learned a thing or two along the way. So today I thought I’d share some of what I’ve learned. Here are some creative ideas for making your home office space your own on a shoestring budget! >>Continue reading Creating a Home Office On a Shoestring Budget
by Jill Black
“If you can imagine it, You can achieve it, If you can dream it, You can become it.” -William Arthur Ward
Setting goals gives a target to aim for and provides focus for where you going and how you intend to get there. When it comes to building a life the average person spends more time planning their annual vacation than they do in planning their… >>Continue reading Goals - Your Roadmap to the Future
Working from home is great. Where else can you work in your pajamas while simultaneously not having to worry about hopping in your car to fight morning traffic? However, there are a few downsides to working at home. The home is your comfort zone, and it’s pretty easy to get distracted in front of the TV or simply by tinkering around the house. To ensure that you are getting the most out of your work day, consider doing the following to avoid distractions . . . >>Continue reading Avoiding Distractions in Your Home Office
I’ve had a second land-line since 1997 and a cell phone since 1998, but I’m absolutely in love with Google Voice. If you work at home, or want to, as a telecommuter or a small business owner, you might find Google Voice to be a helpful tool, too. >>Continue reading Google Voice Is Handy Handy Handy
As a general rule, I hate dealing with sales people in stores… particularly when it comes to buying hardware and electronics. I much prefer ‘smart’ researching online and chatting with friends about whatever product (or service for that matter) I find myself in need of.
Check out this video of a salesman in a tech store who’s trying to push his own brand (Lemon) to the poor consumers who… >>Continue reading Are You Brandwashed?
Running a business isn’t easy, but that’s one of the reasons why people do it. If being successful were simple, then everyone would do it. Running your own business comes with its own set of challenges. When you’re a one-person company, you can’t rely on anyone else to get the work done. You’ll fly or fall under your own strength and keeping everything together can be quite the task. Getting through the daily demands requires a lot of the individual that often comes from sheer determination. Jess Wagner provides a list of some of the things to keep in mind when you’re going over your daily routine and trying to keep everything in order. >>Continue reading Day To Day Operations: Tips Towards Organizing Your Home Business
A while back a Pendaflex rep emailed me to see if I’d be interested in test driving some office organizing products. I already make use of Pendaflex hanging file folders to keep my file cabinet colorfully sane and keeping my home office organized is always a goal. So I decided to take them up on the challenge to see what they’d send and how I might be able to incorporate it into my every day organization tactics.
I was pretty surprised when the package arrived. There were far more handy items than I had expected. >>Continue reading Getting Organized With Pendaflex
The New Year always brings to mind thoughts of improving my constantly-in-the-works organization tactics. The more organized you can be, the easier working at home is. It’s not always easy to balance both working and living in the same space and keeping both sides organized is super helpful for obvious reasons.
If you’ve decided to telecommute and are a tad bit worried because you’re not very organized, you’re certainly… >>Continue reading 5 Truisms of Staying Organized Throughout The Year
You found and applied for the perfect telecommuting job but it’s been weeks and you can’t understand why you haven’t heard back. Well, maybe they called and got your voicemail. Were they impressed enough to leave a message or so turned off that they just hung up?
Believe it or not, bad voice mail greetings exist and it’s not just large companies giving customers a long list of instructions to punch their way through in hopes of talking to a real, live person. It’s job seekers and small business owners not thinking about the image they’re portraying when they note a phone number in their contact info. >>Continue reading 10 Tips for Creating A Professional Voicemail Greeting
The mobile workforce is expected to grow to 1.2 billion people (one-third of the existing global workforce) by 2013, according to IDC Research. For those of us who work from home or know someone who does, it’s easy to see why. Being a remote worker has a lot of benefits – little or no commuting time, the ability to time shift when needed, keeping a job when you have to move away, and more.
Yet with this increase in acceptance comes a corresponding increase in expectations for these workers. Telecommuters are required to display the same level of professionalism as their office-bound colleagues, particularly in their interactions with co-workers, business partners and customers. However, if they are not using effective technology, this can be a seemingly insurmountable task.
Here are some ideas on how you can be sure you’re presenting a top-notch, professional image by replacing inadequate consumer technologies with affordable tools designed specifically for those working in small or home offices. >>Continue reading Tech for Telecommuters: Work from Home without Looking Like It
The peak summer vacation season is still in full swing. And with it comes the dilemma small business owners have been facing since the beginning of the Industrial Age: Take therapeutic time off to clear your mind and recharge, or make the choice and fear that you’re not going to be available when an urgent client need arises.
Fortunately, these days it doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing choice. >>Continue reading Make Vacation Communication a Day at the Beach
If you ask a small business what’s one of the most difficult operational tasks needed to be dealt with, staying on budget with monthly expenses will likely be a top contender, especially in these challenging economic times. And chances are your business faces the same obstacle every month.
It seems every time you turn around, there is another expense, a delay in payment, or some other circumstance that has a negative effect on your cash flow. So instead of putting a little something away for an even rainier day, you find yourself sweating it out until it’s time to flip to the next page of the monthly calendar for a fresh influx of cash.
If you want to make the money and the month line up better, you may need to rethink some of your business assumptions – including what constitutes a must-have expense. Following are a few ideas that can help improve your overall cash flow. >>Continue reading Creative Ways to Cut Monthly Business Costs
