Draughtproofing – last year we were living in a house with Victorian single-glazed windows and it was freezing. I kept some curtains closed all day, but this is too depressing for a room you spend a lot of time in. The house we’re in now has secondary glazing and it makes a noticeable difference.

If you can’t install secondary or double glazing, fill gaps between sashes and cracks in woodwork with draughtproofing foam. A home working friend tells me that the temporary secondary glazing kits you install yourself using tape and plastic film smoothed out with a hairdryer are also very effective.

Fill gaps around doors (not forgetting keyholes!), pipework and electrical fittings. Block up gaps in floorboards where cold air will come whistling through.

Follow the sun – copy the cat, the ultimate comfort-loving animal, and make sure you’re always working in a patch of sunlight. In our current house, my home office faces north and gets no sun at all, whereas A’s is on the opposite side of the house and on clear days is bathed in sun all morning. I sometimes take my laptop in there when he’s out. Not only is it warmer but working in sunshine provides such a psychological lift.

Thanks to wifi I’ve also been working in the sitting room window to take advantage, not only of the sun, but also the woodburner, which we both love. I find that working away from my usual spot also helps productivity, which gives me a warm internal glow!

Localised heating – home workers are often reluctant to keep the heating on all day when the rest of the family is out, and these days the cost is often prohibitive anyway. Once your home office is draught-free, bring in a space heater to keep you warm all day without busting the budget. Oil-filled radiators are highly recommended by a home working friend and apparently cost only pennies a day to run.

I’m hoping this winter will stay mild, but many home workers are guaranteed months of snow and ice – how do you heat your home office as economically and greenly as possible to stay warm over the winter?

Take yourself off on an extended holiday
One of the chief gripes of those working for themselves is that there’s never enough time for a decent holiday. Take a look at previous years’ figures to find out how big your seasonal dip actually is. If many of the people you deal with are unavailable, it could be a the ideal opportunity to take a break with minimum disruption to your cash flow. An escape to a warmer climate could give you a much-needed boost of sunshine to get the New Year off to a good start.

Work on your business, instead of in it
Another frequent complaint is of never having the time to step back, get things into perspective and plan future development. Use the slowdown to draw breath, look at what you’ve accomplished and where you want to go next. Even better to get some fellow freelancers round for seasonal refreshments while you all give feedback to each other and share ideas.

Clear the decks
Fewer phone calls and a slower work flow give you the chance to clear paperwork, do computer housekeeping and generally weed out stuff you no longer need that’s getting in the way of finding the stuff you do. It’s also a great way to prepare mentally for the year ahead with an office detox

Chase payment
Find out from clients exactly what their arrangements for payment will be over the holiday period, so you can allow for it when invoicing. Get your invoices in promptly and then chase payment – politely, of course! – as soon as it’s due. The New Year can be a tricky time for cash flow so you’ll feel the benefits for a while to come.

11. iftt: San’s bonus to the list was completely new to me and a great little service that lets you automate various tasks. If This Then That lets you set triggers and actions. So if you would like to save the photo you take with Instagram to your Dropbox account you can. Simply look at their list of top automations to pick the ones that would save you time.

Personally I only use 4 of the above on a daily basis (Dropbox, Twitter, Buffer and Google Reader) so don’t feel overwhelmed if there are unfamiliar names on the list. Best to use just one effectively than set up accounts with lots and then loose track of what you are storing where!

I am all for keeping thing simple and try to use as little as possible to do what I need to do. The following 2 are essential daily tools for me:

12. Office365: this is how I manage my emails, calendar and contacts. Office365 is a recently launched service from Microsoft which offers Exchange Online to sync all your data across as many devices as you like. I have Outlook on 3 different laptops at home (all different sizes- I am in tech, remember!) and also manage my calendar, contacts and emails on my phone. Sometimes when I am working on the go I will borrow a laptop and access all my data through an Outlook browser app. Unlike everything on San’s list this one will cost you £4+VAT a month and is available for both Mac and PC users.

13. 1Password: another essential for me- password management software so you never need to remember your passwords. Sloppy password management will make you vulnerable to hackers so its important to keep strong and different passwords for everything. Spending some time setting up this software is a great way to protect yourself and save time from having to reset passwords when you can’t remember them! Again not a free one but in this case also worth paying.

I hope this list of 13 tools proves useful in saving you time – if there is anything we’ve left off the list leave a comment and let us know how you use technology to save you time.

Francesca Geens founded Digital Dragonfly to help tiny businesses with their IT and technology. She is especially interested in productivity and the use of technology to improve people’s day-to-day business lives, and is offering one of her unique Best-Practice Consultancy sessions for free every month to support individuals setting up their own businesses. Find out if you are eligible to apply.

6. Flow / Toodledo: I am a big fan of Getting Things Done by David Allen and ever since reading it use a task list to manage my business and personal to do’s. Personally I use Outlook tasks but both these apps are other great cloud based ways of tracking your tasks.

7. Twitter: We looked at a range of Twitter options from the ‘just’ Twitter’s own app to more complex apps like Tweetdeck and Hootsuite. The latter are great if you need to manage more than one stream, if you want to schedule tweets or get analytics. Overall the preference fell for Hootsuite as being user friendly and having good looking interface. We also briefly discussed apps like Qwitter which let you see who unfollows you (might be best not to find out!) and Tweriod which lets you know when your followers are most likely to be online.

8. Buffer app: still on the subject of Twitter- whilst we all agreed that scheduling tweets needs to be done with care as it’s a good idea not to flood your followers with tweets. So if you are catching up on your reading send tweets to Buffer and let it automatically spread your tweets throughout the day. Since the workshop I have now added this to my Google Reader so I can tweet to Buffer straight from there: time-saving or what!

9. Basecamp: a great project management app from 37signals which has a free option giving your full functionality with a single project. So whether you are managing your wedding (as in San’s case!) or a client project another great way to keep everything organized and in the cloud.

10. Dropbox: Everyone attending the workshop was already using Dropbox though perhaps not to its full potential. This is a great way to work offline, backup to the cloud and get access to your work from any browser or other machine in which you log into your Dropbox account. I personally have saved all my business and personal documents to Dropbox (the free account is large enough for this) and can access them from 3 different computers that I work on, from any browser and from my phone- essential for any mobile worker.

San also had a bonus for us, plus Francesca has some favourites to add, so there’s still more to come soon! Have you tried any of these suggestions? We’d love to know how you got on.

Last week at Judy Heminsley’s regular ‘How to Work from Home’ workshops at Central we had a tech theme and San Sharma, Community Manager, from Work Snug and Enterprise Nation came along to talk us through his top 10 tech tools to save you time. As a few people couldn’t make it I promised to write it up and as I am in tech myself am going to throw in a few of my favourites at the end as well.

So what were San’s top ten tech tools?

1. Chrome: a good browser is really important. This one is quick, secure, has great add-ons and works across all platforms. Mac user should also check out Safari. Great tip: make sure you are making the most of tabs.

2. Instapaper: Save the shortcut button into your browser and whenever you see some great content you’d like to read later on send it to Instapaper for offline reading on your phone through the Instapaper app. Show You is a similar site for keeping track of video content you’d like to go back to.

3. Google Reader: RSS feeds are a great way to stay productive. Instead of visiting various sites to find relevant contents and news for your industry have it come to you through Google Reader. You can star items you want to save for later and also tweet straight from inside Google Reader (or post to other social media sites, including Buffer). Mac users will also like the aesthetic of Reeder- which also gives you the option to send to Instapaper.

4. Delicious: tagging bookmarks and saving them to your Delicious account is another way to save time by making it easy to go back to great content you come across but don’t have time to read or want to keep going back to. The social side of Delicious is not to everyone’s liking (ie you may not want to show the world what your reading) so note that you have the option to keep everything private. Either way you get to make the most of the great tagging facilities to easily find contents. More advanced users will want to check out the Stack feature.

5. Evernote: Another classic app which is available across platforms and which offers great ways to organize information. Especially useful when travelling or to keep track of receipts- send or scan information to Evernote, tag it or do a key word search and watch the character recognition at work.

To be continued – in the meantime, have fun experimenting and do let me know how you get on.

San was ably assisted by Francesca Geens of Digital Dragonfly, who describes her role as providing non-geeky IT help for one man businesses. We couldn’t have been in better hands! Francesca is kindly writing up the Top 10 Tech Tools for the unlucky home workers who couldn’t be with us at Central – I’ll add the link as soon as it’s available.

Once again the meet-up produced some immediate positive results for those who came, and we all left, not only with plenty of new tools to investigate, but more importantly with a curiosity to try them that we normally lack. Kerry Law has been transformed from IT Luddite to Hootsuite user, Richard of Desktag has been converted to Google Chrome and Evernote, and I now know how to use Instapaper to quickly save the links I find while surfing for later use on my Work from Home Wisdom Facebook page, Pinterest and Twitter.

The next meet-up of How to Work from Home – The Inside Guide is on Thursday 27 October at Central, WC1, and our guest will be Emma Jones of Enterprise Nation and StartUp Britain. Don’t miss it, it’s bound to be another corker!

Many of us who are home or mobile workers are doing something we are passionate about. We have given up jobs that failed to fire us up in order to freelance or set up a small business that uses a talent. In my own experience, I don’t feel I’m “working” in the same sense I was when I was employed; I am simply expressing myself in a way that feels natural, so working at what would traditionally be considered odd hours is not particularly a problem.

Despite this, after a while I started to feel that I could be more creative and productive if I chose my work hours more carefully and actively planned to get out of the house. I found that meeting people, and not necessarily people connected with my business, gave me a boost that never happened at my desk. I therefore pop out to meet a friend for coffee these days at whatever time suits us both.

I’ve come to believe that successful home working means creating your own schedules, regardless of the conventional 9 to 5. The most creative home and mobile workers learn to switch on and off at any time in order to meet deadlines and – more importantly – give their brains a break and fuel their imaginations.

This ability only seems to come with experience. Most new home workers stick to their old office patterns for a while before becoming more aware of their freedom. I’m interested in this way that work is developing and how the boundary between so-called work and leisure is blurring.

How do you mix up your time? Does it feel different from what you have done before?

This post was first published on www.workshifting.com, the site for people who work out of coffee shops, hotels, airports and their homes every bit as much as the office.

Don’t let doubts like these put you off, as coworking can both brighten up your usual routine and give you a supportive network – without requiring you to go to any events!

Here are some tips to help you acclimatize to coworking:

Check out the space – If you’re lucky enough to have a choice of coworking spaces, check out each one (they often offer a free trial) for factors such as facilities, atmosphere, noise and levels of interaction. Choose the one most suited to your business requirements, personality and whether you simply want another place to work or to become part of a community.

Introduce yourself straightaway – As it can be awkward to do so later when you’ve been working alongside people for a while. Take in some snacks to hand round if you’re a bit shy about doing this and not only will you get to meet everybody but you’ll be guaranteed instant popularity.

Take headphones – If you prefer working in silence you might be distracted at first by people moving around the space and talking on the phone or face to face. Bring in headphones so you can play your own music or one of the white noise apps; do try not to hum along!

Start with easy tasks – If you’re worried about being distracted, at first just take along some routine work that doesn’t require massive concentration. It’s the ideal time to do that computer housekeeping you’ve been meaning to get round to, or research to keep up with your industry. You will adapt to being surrounded by activity and gradually be able to introduce jobs needing more application.

Learn the phone policy – Make sure you know the policy on dealing with phone calls and follow it. That may mean leaving the room to take a call or simply keeping your voice down. It shows consideration if you put your phone on the Meeting setting so that your colleagues don’t have to listen repeatedly to your ring tone.

Chat a bit – Don’t feel guilty about spending time chatting and view it instead as relationship building. You’ll be amazed how much information and advice emerges from these casual exchanges and they can give you enough inspiration to last the rest of the week. And you never know who might be a potential partner – one of your coworkers might be actively looking for just your skills.

The great thing about coworking is that you can choose how much or how little you want to participate, and slot it into your routine where it fits best. Good luck in finding your own perfect balance for maximum happiness and efficiency, and I’d love to hear your own tips for acclimatising.

This post was first published on www.workshifting.com, the site for people who work out of coffee shops, hotels, airports and their homes every bit as much as the office

But it was not to be – it started to rain just before I set out, so I took the DLR and got off at Limehouse, confident I had the route well planned. En route I spotted a path by the canal that looked much more scenic than the main road and appeared to lead more directly to my destination. Bad idea. I somehow ended up walking in a circular route around the street I was looking for, getting rather wet in the process.

I was finally rescued by a passer-by who saw me peering at my A-Z. Good thing, as Dod St has no street sign so otherwise I may well have passed it by. There seems to be a moral in my sad story, but I can’t quite think what it is.

I finally squelched into San’s office (and very nice it is too) where he made me tea, fed me croissants and let me gently steam. There was a point to all this soggy urban tramping – here’s the podcast we made about working from home and where to go when home is less appealing. I think you can tell we were having fun as we made it:

You may have come across San wearing his other hat at Bitsy’s #watercoolermoment on Twitter, where he presides over an unruly bunch of home workers at a virtual coffee break from 11 to 12 each weekday.

Come and meet him in person at the next How to Work from Home group at Central on 29 September, when he’ll be passing on the benefits of being a very early adopter and explaining the best tech tools to save time and money in language even the least techie home worker – that’s me – can understand!

Be authentic in every area of your business. You started it in response to an event or a feeling, and that conviction must pervade everything you do, whether it’s choosing suppliers or dealing with staff.

Get connected – Central spoke to 500 people before opening to ask for their opinions and changed tack where necessary. Those people will become your advocates and tell your story.

Keep it simple, stupid! Have just one singleminded message like Central’s ‘the best place to work on the high street’. What you do must be told in your business name, logo and URL.

Be consistent – keep saying your simple message a million times, especially if you don’t have a big marketing budget.

And be relentless, don’t give up – a wave will eventually erode a rock by washing over it repeatedly, and your message will get through!

The meet-up closed with a lively discussion about URLs and business names, and Jo Gilbert, commercial artist and Central member, came up with a strong new name for her business. Not being one to hang around, Jo has already bought her new URL and changed her Twitter name – meet @YourBrandedArt. It was obviously Jo’s lucky night – she also won the competition for best tweet promoting the event and went home with a copy of my book!

As usual we ran out of time long before things to discuss and conversation continued out on the street as the Central staff locked up! The How to Work from Home – The Inside Guide groups are always great fun, very informative and produce real change for the participants (coming soon – a photo showing Eva‘s pristine working area after the procrastination event in August!)

Next month we have the charming and self-confessed computer nerd San Sharma of Bitsy and WorkSnug talking to us about the Top 10 Tech Tips to Save Time in language a non-techie can understand. Come and join us!