It’s good to talk
Mar 16th
One of the major problems of working from home is that being in the same place all the time makes it very difficult to get any perspective on challenging issues and you can end up tearing your hair out. I speak from experience!
So I’ve been trialling the Work from Home Audit, which is a phone or Skype conversation with me to talk about your sticking points and come up with creative ways to get round or through them. The results have been far better than I ever dreamed and I’m thrilled that Kate and Fiona have made so much progress on their home businesses – and are having fun in the process! You can read what they say about our chats on the new Work from Home Audit page.
Can’t see the home working wood for the trees? Get in touch and we’ll chat. You’ll feel much more positive afterwards!
Jelly at Glove Factory Studios
Mar 14th
I’m really excited to have another venue for Jelly, the beautiful and quirky Glove Factory Studios at Holt near Bradford-on-Avon. They are described as a contemporary renovation of an industrial heritage building and have to be experienced – the website has some lovely pictures, but you have to be there to appreciate the place, which is light, airy and full of character. As well as office and studio space, there is a gallery, cafe and outdoor exhibition spaces in the process of being finished.
Glove Factory Studios is another property in the portfolio of Forward Space, whose owner Gavin Eddy believes in the many benefits of Jelly as strongly as I do, and whose Frome coworking space The Old Church School is the home of Frome Jelly. He is also working on another characterful conversion in Taunton, The Collar Factory, which I believe is due for completion later this year.
Holt Jelly is on Wednesday 24 March from 10 am to 4 pm and all you have to do is book a place and turn up with your laptop to take advantage of free wifi access and inspiring surroundings for the day.
Moving on
Mar 13th
Good news this week – we’ve finally found another house to rent after two months of searching. A house that will accommodate two home offices and all our furniture. We think we’re pretty minimal in our possessions but having always lived in older properties, which have larger rooms, we’ve discovered we have too much for modern houses, which tend to have fitted wardrobes and appliances.
We will probably have to put everything in storage for a while as the owners of the new house are moving away to start a business and won’t be ready to leave at the time we have to move out of here, but it’s a huge relief to have found somewhere. And we had already booked a few days in Spain for the interim period, so we‘ll be moving in when we get back.
It looks like it’s going to be a busy time as we pack up to leave while I continue to add to the site (Work from Home Audit coming very soon) and start Jelly at a new fantastic new venue, Glove Factory Studios in Holt near Bradford-on-Avon. More about that soon as well.
Go Freelance
Mar 5th
Having mentioned my podcast with Freelance Advisor, I mustn’t forget to tell you about their comprehensive and very readable guide to freelancing, Go Freelance, which has just been revised and updated for 2010. It covers everything you’d ever ask about going it alone, from getting started and understanding the legalities, to getting paid – and what to do if clients aren’t paying – to staying motivated when things get tough. All completely free and almost 2000 people have downloaded it already, which says a lot.
Inspiration and entrepreneurs
Mar 1st
I’m always going on about the necessity of getting out frequently when you work from home and I’m really looking forward to Sunday, when I’ll be attending an Inspired Entrepreneur event in London with Nick Williams and Judy Piatkus.
Nick’s expertise is in helping people to overcome the conditioning many of us have received that work is something you have to do to pay the bills and fund the things you like doing in your time off. He helps people to identify their unique combination of skills and talents and find ways of earning money while using these and enjoying themselves. I have known Nick for 10 years, since I sold my cleaning business, and over the last couple of years he has helped me enormously in shaping the vague ideas I had about building a business related to home working.
I find I benefit from his events in several ways – because the quality of the information is topnotch, coming as it does from Nick’s own experience, because there are always interesting and supportive people there, and just because it’s so refreshing to get out of my normal environment and spend a day in the big city!
This time Nick is talking about making the often scary move from employee to Inspired Entrepreneur and in the ticket price you also get a workbook and 12 interviews on CD – and do you know, one of them is of me! Oops, just noticed there are only two places left, so if it sounds interesting, you’d better book quickly!
In the afternoon Judy Piatkus (who founded Piatkus Books from her back bedroom) will reveal the six biggest trends of the next two years, and how you and your business can take advantage of them. I am fascinated by trends and have been on the alert for them since years ago I read a book called The Popcorn Report, which predicted many trends that have since become commonplace – for example, the rise of ‘foodaceuticals’, where food such as butter spread contains ingredients with health benefits, the growing popularity of foreign foods, and the retreat to the home as a refuge from the scary things happening in the world. I can’t wait to hear Judy’s’ take on what’s happening now.
In the pod
Feb 19th
We’re presently trying to find out where to host some audio clips I want to put on the site, with little progress to date. But I’m pleased to say you can listen immediately to me talking about the challenges of working from home by going to Freelance Advisor, an excellent site full of good advice for anyone already working as a freelancer or contemplating taking the plunge.
The podcast came about as a result of the spontaneous call I made to Radio Bristol after receiving a tweet one snowy morning telling me the subject under discussion was working at home in bad weather. Somehow the editor of Freelance Advisor heard the clip and invited me to do the podcast. And all accomplished sitting at my desk at home – amazing!
‘What do you do?’
Feb 18th
Just lately a few people have asked me ‘What do you actually do?’ or ‘How do you make a living?’ and those are very fair questions, as at the moment there is nothing on the website that gives any indication!
The answer is that I have been working first on the content of the site, on linking to other sites that are good resources for home workers and on building up traffic. I’m now at the point where I’m almost ready to offer products and services, while still regularly adding new pages of information.
One thing I have been working on is provisionally titled the Work from Home Audit, and is a 30 or 60 minute phone or Skype conversation to assess how happy you are with what you’re currently achieving in your home working role, and to discuss ways of improving things. The people who have been helping me trial this have been delighted with the results and moved their businesses on noticeably.
I also give talks and workshops about home working to groups and at events, and again I’m preparing information about this. At the moment, apart from the occasional help of the patient and long-suffering A, it’s just me producing all this stuff so progress is always slower than I’d like, bearing in mind I have very little patience and would ideally like to bring every idea into being as soon as I think of it!
And a postscript to that Victor vitriol
Feb 12th
Just as I was thinking I’m probably paranoid (too much working at home probably), I came across an article on remoteemployment.com about how being a home worker could have an adverse effect on your credit rating. Take a look and bear it in mind next time you fill out an application – the tiniest, most innocent-seeming detail could have an impact on whether you are successful or not.
A Meldrew moment
Feb 11th
We’re currently looking for another house to rent in Frome, as our landlords have decided to sell up. It’s not nice having to face the prospect of packing up when you’re happily settled somewhere, but the situation isn’t exactly helped by the attitude of many letting agencies when they ask about your personal circumstances. It goes like this:
‘Are you in full-time employment?’
‘No, we’re both self-employed.’
Pause…‘Self-employed?’
‘Yes.’
Pause…‘Ah…have you been self-employed for more than three years?’
‘My partner has, but I haven’t.’
Pause…’Ah…because you see you’re supposed to… blah blah’
Now I’m fully aware they have a duty to protect their clients’ interests by making sure we aren’t a couple of swindlers who would move in and then never pay a penny of rent, but what difference does it make if you can prove you’re in full-time employment when you apply? You could give up work or get the sack the day after being given the go-ahead, and have no money at all.
We have the capital from our last house sale and are working hard on building what we fully intend will be very profitable businesses, but we are treated as undesirable because we don’t work for someone else or have three years books.
Just another symptom of how the system is still set up for a disappeared way of life. Governments have paid lip service for years to the idea of enterprise, self-employment and small business, but I’ll take them seriously when a self-employed person isn’t automatically treated as a bad risk when applying for a mortgage or to rent a property. You could argue quite the opposite case to my mind.
OK, thanks for reading, I feel a bit better now.
The tweetometer stands at 1000
Jan 31st
My observant coworking friend Lee Cottier pointed out the other day that I have now sent out more than 1000 tweets. I wasn’t keeping count, so the total was a surprise. It would be good if you could attach a tweetometer to the side of your computer and watch the tweets roll up, just like the miles on a car!
Passing 1000 tweets made me think back on all the people and information Twitter has brought me in just over five months. For a start, it was where I found out about Jelly and then met or connected with many interesting people who can see the possibilities in coworking. I now have lots of Jelly information on the site and it’s exciting to know that it’s being read, and recommended, by coworking spaces in the US where Jelly originated.
I find it quite staggering that I can tweet a short message from the West Country here in the UK that is instantly picked up by like-minded people on the west coast of America. This really is the best time in history to be starting and running a business.
