Working from home tips
3 ways to take a break without leaving your desk when you work at home
Jul 16th
1. Hook up with fellow home workers and freelancers on Twitter
At 11 am in the UK the hospitable San Sharma (Charmer?) of Enterprise Nation hosts #watercoolermoment, which has a daily topic for you to chew over. On Fridays you can eyeball each other on the video chat.
I’ve recently also discovered #elevensestime, which I popped into for the first time today and found a very friendly and welcoming bunch of tweeters. @MartinGBEdwards is the main man and there’s also a blog Elevenses Time, which brings me neatly to my next point:
2. Give your brain a rest
and gather some inspiration by reading a blog or two totally unrelated to your work. One of my absolute favourites is The Sartorialist, a photo blog of stylish ‘ordinary’ people in the streets of New York and the cities Sartorialist Scott Schuman visits to record fashion shows. I also like Wee Birdy, a fresh, colourful design blog by an Australian living in London with lots of equally good links.
3. And just for a change
stop looking at that computer screen and give your eyes a rest. We tend to spend far too long for the health of our eyes gazing at computers. Keep your eyes open while cupping your palms gently over them and look into the soft, warm blackness for a couple of minutes…aaaahhh, what a relief!
Would you let your kids plan your home working diary?
Jul 13th
The little Somerset town of Frome where we moved two years ago is a vibrant and creative place and its annual festival is growing every year. On Sunday I was delighted to take part in Writers and Publishers Day by running a workshop for writers who work from home.
I had a very enjoyable and useful time talking to twelve enthusiastic writers about the issues that most affect them and any home worker – developing some kind of routine for your working day, the terrors of procrastination, and how to recognise when you’re spending too much time alone.
Everyone agreed that juggling home and family commitments with work can be a nightmare and often the writing gets abandoned because other, more mundane jobs seem so much more pressing. Even things like ironing and digging the garden yield a quick, tangible result, while making time to write can seem indulgent and selfish.
We agreed that these are issues that never seem to get resolved, and then yesterday one of the group told me that her children had planned the day to include a couple of hours writing time – and unlike many of her own previous plans, those hours actually happened!
Which makes me wonder if she has stumbled upon a brilliant solution to home working parents’ guilt – let the kids have a hand in planning the diary, including your work time, so they have an investment in making it happen.
A moving experience
Jun 27th
Moving house is supposed to be up there amongst the most stressful events of a lifetime, and if you run a business from home, there’s even more to consider. We’ve moved our home and two businesses several times in recent years and so I’ve distilled my experiences into a short guide ‘How to move house when you work at home’ published by my pals at Enterprise Nation.
What I’ve learnt is that there’s plenty you can’t control about a house move (such as whether your utility suppliers actually provide what they’ve promised, as I described in Moving in more ways than one) but you’ll have less to worry about if you prepare as much as you possibly can and keep track of what others are doing. Often things will happen that you didn’t predict, but I find it helps to bear in mind that it will all work out in the end, even if you can’t sort it out straightaway!
Podcast progress
May 13th
I wrote recently in Unexpected Pleasures about how wonderful it is when something good happens that you haven’t had to work or push for. It’s a salutary reminder that life doesn’t have to be a struggle!
I also love it when out of the blue an answer arrives to a question you have been puzzling over and finally let go of out of sheer exasperation of ever finding a solution. It happened today, funnily enough once again via the lovely San Sharma of Enterprise Nation. Last time he put my book about working from home on the EN Amazon wishlist. Today he has enabled us (OK, to be completely honest, my long-suffering IT helpdesk, A) to put two audio clips on the site that have been languishing unheard for months.
You can find them both on the Judy Heminsley page, but in the same spirit of effortlessness, here’s one you can play without any more clicking. It’s a chat with Nick Williams of Inspired Entrepreneur about cleaning, writing a book and the many joys and challenges of working from home. Thanks, San!
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!
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.
The twilight zone
Dec 28th
This is a very peculiar time of year, a sort of twilight between Christmas and New Year in which nothing much happens. It’s a good time to do a clear-out of your home office ready for the new start after the January 1 Bank Holiday. I find jobs like getting rid of old paperwork are perfect for bridging the gap and making me feel ready for another year.
One thing I always do is go through my old diary and make a list of all the things I’ve achieved this year. It’s always far longer than I remember and makes me feel grateful for everything that’s happened, and positive about the future. This year’s list includes moving into a light and spacious house perfect for home working, the publication of my book, learning how to use Twitter, discovering Jelly and meeting some really helpful and inspiring people, including Mark Shaw (Twitter), Lee Cottier (coworking and Jelly) and Louise Billington (creative coach).
Next year will I hope include moving into another light and spacious house perfect for home working (sadly, our landlords have decided to sell up), developing some exciting products and services to help home workers be more successful, speaking to more groups about the joys of working from home and meeting yet more amazing people.
What do you want to achieve in 2010?
C-c-cold at the computer
Dec 18th
Unlike the east of the country, here in the South West we’ve had no snow, but it’s been the first seriously cold day of the winter. Which means I have wrapped myself up in my home working winter wardrobe of fleece, down waistcoat, thick tights, jeans and sheepskin boots. And amazingly for me, I haven’t felt particularly cold at all, even though I’ve spent all day sitting at the keyboard.
We are lucky in that the room we work in is the warmest in the house. In previous houses I always seemed to end up with the coldest, but here the sun streams in during the morning and the heat seems to be retained. It’s also directly above the sitting room where the woodburner is and so gets the warmth from the chimney breast when the fire is lit in the evenings.
Lots of home workers complain about getting cold and I think lots of us feel uneasy about having the central heating on when we’re the only one in the house all day. For me, the sheepskin boots have been the key – warm feet keep the rest of me warm, it seems.
Could you have a portfolio career?
Dec 15th
We are swapping books to check each other out more thoroughly and so I will report back in due course on Building a Portfolio Career, which I’m sure will be of interest to lots of home workers, present and prospective.
