Posts tagged health
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!
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!
A pain in the ear
Oct 1st
I rarely use my mobile. Like a pensioner, I keep it switched off most of the time, for use only when I need to check in at home or for emergencies. That’s why I don’t publish the number on my website or business card.
The reason is a pretty compelling one – if I make a call with the phone to my ear, shortly afterwards my ear hurts inside. It started when long phone calls using a cordless phone would make my ear hot, and then when I was a writing student at UCF and using the mobile more often, I noticed the pain. Now I only ever use it with the loudspeaker on so it’s away from my ear, which as you can imagine is not always very convenient.
I did get the doctor to check me out. He peered inside and pronounced everything perfectly healthy, which was a relief, but he didn’t seem very surprised by my problem and said that call centre staff can suffer badly in this way, wearing headsets all the time.
I do feel slightly freakish when I have to tell people and I’ve only ever heard of one other person who has the same experience. Do let me know if you know of others.
Finding out where the fat lurks
Jul 20th
Reading the F2 Diet book has been a revelation, as I’ve never given any thought to calories or what kinds of food might make me fat. Running my cleaning business meant putting on weight was never an issue, what with all the dashing around and the stress of trying to keep both cleaners and clients happy. Not to mention living in dread of the afternoon phone call – ‘I won’t be coming in tonight…’
So I entered my forties in the misguided belief I could eat whatever I liked, despite the growing evidence to the contrary. The F2 book has a section on the fat content of various foods and I can tell you it’s been an eye-opener. I have become one of those people who reads labels like a hawk. I mean, how come plain chocolate has more fat than milk, when everybody knows plain is (sort of) good for you? And you know those teacakes, the kind with marshmallow on a biscuit base covered in microscopically thin chocolate you can bash with a spoon and peel like a boiled egg? 16g of fat per 100g when I could have sworn I was eating mainly air. I can see that to get and stay slim I need to wisen up.
I’m fat because I haven’t been eating enough fondant fancies
Jun 19th
Perhaps the worst thing about spending lots of time at the computer is spreading bottom syndrome, and not just bottom, come to that. When I ran my cleaning business I stayed slim without any effort at all, due to the physical work and the stress of wondering which of my cleaners wouldn’t turn up for work that night. The weird thing is that at the time I never actually believed I was slim! When I was clearing the house ready to move last year, I came across a photo of me from the early 90s, wearing a sweatshirt tucked into my jeans and I still had a clearly defined waist! Couldn’t do it now.
So it’s time for some fatbusting and I have been reading The F2 Diet
The wonderful thing about it is that you never feel hungry, and start to feel lighter very quickly, as all that fibre makes its way through your system. That of course can be a bit of a social liability, but working from home makes it much easier! You are also allowed a number of fat units a day, so you can still have a bit of chocolate or something sweet. I was astonished to discover that a fondant fancy has only one fat unit, the same as a boring old digestive biscuit. I haven’t succumbed yet, but I found it pretty heartening.
Running on Empty
Apr 20th
I mentioned recently that one of the things I like best about working from home is being able to take time off when I feel like it. And one of the worst?
One of the worst traps to fall into, and I still do it after all this time, is to keep expecting to produce great results when actually you’ve exhausted your reserves and all you need is a total break from work, or home, or preferably both. I’ve just done it again in fact, even ignoring the sneezing, nose-blowing evidence of a bad cold for two weeks and wondering why I had no enthusiasm for updating the site and promoting the book.
Fortunately we had already booked a few days away in London, but it wasn’t until I got away that I realised how desperately I needed a change of scene. Homeworkers tend to be very hard on themselves, but it’s much better to give yourself a break, in both senses of the term.
The book is launched
Apr 8th
The book launch on Saturday went brilliantly well, especially the mini scones with jam and cream. There are a few brownies and some cake left, but nothing too disastrous for a homeworker who can’t forget what’s lurking in the cake tins. It was lovely to see friends from different phases of my life, especially as they all seemed to enjoy meeting one another and to find plenty to talk about.
Here I am talking to Bill Greenwell, one of my tutors on the MA Prof Writing course and one of the best teachers I’ve ever met. He has mentioned me on his blog – see the entry for April 7 on http://billgreenwell.wordpress.com – which is a great destination for homeworkers like me who have to ease themselves gently into the day and find that good writing on the web is an excellent way to achieve this. Bill has a wonderful way with words (maybe something to do with the fact he’s a poet!) and knows how to tell a good story. I particularly recommend you click on Home at the top of the page and then Previous Entries (bottom of the next) to read Other People’s Stories and The Radiographer’s Story if you want to start your day with a laugh.
The day after the launch I came down with a shocking cold, which is why it’s taken me so long to write a post about the big day. Even when you’re working from home, away from the tensions of the traditional workplace, it can happen that as soon as you relax after a period of stress or working hard, you immediately fall ill. So I’ve had a few days of taking it easy, but now it’s back to the keyboard.
Work from Home Essential No.1 – Warm Feet
Feb 14th
Do you spend long periods sitting at a workbench or desk, getting more and more chilled? I’ve tried all sorts of solutions over the last few winters – thermal socks, scarves, wrapping myself in a blanket, body warmers, gloves, and sometimes all of the above at once – but nothing was really that effective.
But this year I have discovered sheepskin boots
Even during the recent snowfalls, my feet have been toasty all day, whether I am sitting at the computer or standing on the ceramic tiles in the kitchen. And warm feet for this homeworker mean warm body, warmer hands, and a much nicer disposition. I still wouldn’t dream of wearing them out of the house, but as homeworking attire they are lifechanging.
