Posts tagged books
Working 5 to 9
Jun 3rd
I’m also delighted that Emma has teamed up with another of my favourite entrepreneurial people, Nick Williams, and is talking about spare time business at the Inspired Entrepreneurs’ Club on 23 June. Nick recommends taking baby steps on your way to making money from something that fulfills you, so it’s the perfect match! A copy of the book is included in the ticket price and there’s literally only a handful of places left, so book now for an inspirational evening. I just wish I was able to go!
Unexpected pleasures
Mar 31st
A and I have noticed before that it’s amazing what can happen when you let go of trying hard, and go off and do something else entirely. I’ve been doing a lot of work lately on content for the site and articles for other websites and blogs. But with the move coming up next week, like it or not, I’ve now got no choice but to spend time on packing and getting organised.
We were busy with this yesterday morning and part of the afternoon, but when I arrived home and looked at my Twitter account, I discovered that in my absence Work from Home had been recommended by Enterprise Nation members and put on their Amazon Wish List! Quite made my day, if not my whole week.
And a welcome reminder right now that good things happen all by themselves without planning, strategising or my direct involvement. Phew, long exhale, shoulders down…
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.
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.
How work is changing
Dec 8th
There were the usual stories of people who used to have to go to an office but can now work abroad or from their garden sheds, but what caught my attention was the question of how we avoid a two-tier society when essential services still have to be supplied by people who can’t work at home and often have to work long, anti-social hours in unpleasant conditions.
I feel that really needs addressing now, and maybe there will be some pointers in the book written by Richard Donkin, who was the major contributor to the programme. It’s called The Future of Work
and will be fascinating to compare to American Daniel Pink’s Free Agent Nation.
What particularly bothers me is that government and the law seems unwilling or incapable of keeping up with the changes in the way people work, which after all don’t happen overnight but over a long period of time, but more about that another time.
A must-read for homeworkers
Aug 5th
I first heard about ‘Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty – The Only Networking Book You’ll Ever Need‘ years ago, but it didn’t appear to be in print in the UK and I didn’t follow up on it, partly because I share to some extent the British scepticism of American self-help books, despite having read and benefited from a few in my time. Then it was recommended again recently by Niki Hignett of www.inspired-entrepreneur.com, whose opinion I greatly respect, and this time I was able to order it from the wonderful local library.
It grabbed me from the first line and I finished it in a day. The style is friendly and down-to-earth and there are loads of stories. The chapters are short and so you keep reading on – just one more before I get back to the keyboard, put the light out etc. I think the book is so inspiring because it reminds you that business is first and foremost about people, whether they are customers, suppliers, employees or competitors, and actually they are probably much more open to being approached than you’d think.
Sitting in our back bedrooms, sheds and wherever else we perch, it’s so easy for us homeworkers to develop a kind of psychological split from the rest of the world and draw back from connecting with others. ‘They won’t be interested in me’, ‘I’m just a mum who does some freelance work’ and ‘What have I got to offer all those slick corporate types?’ are the kind of things we tend to say to ourselves.
So listen to Harvey and promise you ‘will never say no for the other guy’. Give it a try. If they do say no, try someone else. The other day I learnt that a large supplier of books has decided not to stock Work from Home because he believes it isn’t relevant to his target market. I was disappointed, but at least I asked, and actually the rejection didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. Just wait till his customers start asking for my book!
Thanks to Harvey, I’ve got a few ideas on other people to approach. I’ll let you know how it goes and I’d love to hear any stories of breaks you’ve got by being brave and chancing an approach to someone you might have thought was out of your league.
Inbox blindness
Jul 21st
As a minimalist by nature, I hate it when my inbox contains more emails than I can see all at once – when the dreaded scroll bar appears at the side. Although usually ruthless with the delete key, I like to keep messages there in full view until they have been dealt with, in the belief that seeing them there will remind me to do whatever’s required. But sometimes they build up and I somehow stop seeing the ones towards the bottom.
So my apologies if you’ve had a delayed response from me – it’s nothing personal, just a kind of inbox blindness. And yes, I know I give some cleverclogs advice in my book Work from Home about dealing efficiently with emails (page 89 if you’re interested), but it’s so much easier to give advice than to follow it, don’t you find?
Free novels up for grabs
Jul 10th
This blog seems to be in danger of becoming about books rather than working from home, but I just have to let you know about an opportunity to win a newly-published novel. A local free magazine, The Furball, has 5 signed copies of Pictures of You by Jane Elmor to give away if you know the answer to the following question:
What was the name of the farm where the legendary 1970 Isle of Wight festival took place?
Easy for anyone who can Google, so just email your answer to matt@thefurball.co.uk by 31July with ‘Book competition’ in the subject heading and you might have some lovely new reading material heading your way.
I met Jane when I moved to Frome a year ago and her first novel My Vintage Summer
Can’t wait? Then you can click and buy it here straightaway, you greedy booklover, you:
It’s not frivolous to be interested in fashion
Jun 22nd
If you’ve had a look at the Books for Homeworkers page you’ll already know I like the novels of Linda Grant. I’m presently re-reading her latest book, The Thoughtful Dresser
There’s fascinating information about key designers, a spot-on analysis of how to shop and why it’s good to browse without intending to buy anything, and the staggering story of how a girl managed to survive the German death camps and go on to become a fashion leader in Canada, her adopted home.
I particularly liked Grant’s theory that the constant changes of fashion, rather than being a capitalist plot to get empty-headed women to keep spending, actually reflect our unconscious knowledge that we are always changing and cannot live in the past. That strikes a chord with me because I find I ‘grow out of’ clothes, not in the physical sense, but because putting them on reminds me of the person I was when I wore them, and I can’t or don’t want to be that person any more.
And yet every so often there comes along a wonderful garment or pair of shoes that somehow continues to be so ‘us’, no matter how long we wear it, that we keep it till it’s in shreds and try forever to replace it.
I can’t recommend this book enough and I’m sure it will influence how I think about clothes in the future.
‘Life’s a Pitch…’ Part 2
May 19th
I’ve now read Stephen Bayley’s part of Life’s a Pitch
There’s useful and thought-provoking stuff in here for homeworkers, such as making first impressions (which this blog has already proved to be a minefield), the perils of the business lunch, the nature of charisma and how to make an impact with a letter. Unfortunately many readers might be put off digging through the verbiage to find them by Bayley’s obvious cleverness and numerous quotes and classical references.
The final section is an appendix of interviews with ‘our panel of experts’, historical figures whose actual or attributed words have been woven into a Q&A format. I feel this bit could be dispensed with, but overall A and I are so impressed that we’ve bought a copy so we’ve always got it for reference, albeit the cheaper, smaller (blue) paperback. The red book (Amazon link on previous post on the book) was published first in a large paperback format and has colour pics and lots of white space, which definitely add to the reading experience. But it’s more expensive – you pays your money etc.
