Tag Archive for: Work at home

4 Key Productivity Concepts for Work at Home

key productivity concepts for work at home

 

Is this you?  You took the leap and decided to start your own company, be a consultant, work at home managing investments, or another job that has you office out of your home.  You loved the idea of flexibility and managing your own time.  You’re juggling the demands of home and work in the same space and feeling unproductive and overwhelmed.  How do you maximize your productivity?  Here’s 4 key tools for work at home.

 

Family calendar and family meeting

The blend of family and work blurs when you work at home.  While it’s a blessing to be available for volunteering, it’s also a challenge to get your administrative tasks complete.  A family calendar is required that includes all commitments. Using Google calendar or Cozi, you and your partner can add commitments in real time.  Take this to the next step by adding in routines that help you complete family tasks like meals, exercise and family bedtime routines.  When you add in these routines, you are sure to complete these too.   Take the final step of printing this out for you to see the calendar. This visual reminder will help you stay on track.

 

A family meeting insures communication and collaboration.  Set a time that works best for you and your partner. In the beginning it might just be you two and then add in the rest of the family.  Your family meeting is a combination of communication and collaboration.  Make it fun with a snack, walk after or time together.

 

Creating a team

I love the story of Who Packs Your Parachute.  The best work we do is in collaboration with another.  It’s how we accomplish more because of all the little things we do for others and what others do for us.  I encourage you to do what you do best and find others to help you get more done.  Your team can be your family, working from a chart for family clean.  Or you can find help in a myriad of ways like Care.com.  Choose helpers who are above all trust worthy.  You can train someone with a skill.

 

Most important task list

When we are in the blur of life and work, we often lose track of what’s most important. A simple Most Important Task list, written the night before, keeps us on track.  How do you know what’s most important?  It’s typically the task with the most steps, more difficult to accomplish, and more fearful task.  When you write it down on your paper or digital list, it’s a commitment to the task.  All lists are too long and we feel unproductive, so a short list that can be accomplished makes all the difference.

 

Know the One Thing

What’s the One Thing that makes your life run smoothly? Is it exercise, doing meditation, writing in your journal each morning? Or maybe it’s being sure the dishwasher is unloaded every night, or relying on your partner to drop off the kids each day?  Whatever that One Thing is, be inflexible and committed to making that happen.  It’s not surprising that each of us has One Thing that makes life run smoothly. Identify and commit to making that happen.  My One Thing is exercise each morning. I walk for 45 minutes with a trusted friend who shares my enthusiasm for volunteering, mentoring and leadership.

 

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Work at Home: Apps and More

  Work at Home

Our world is filled with organizing automation and technology.  Work at home requires effectiveness and efficiency. These apps can help you make a difference.

Below are a few of my favorite apps for making life easier and more organized.

Evernote~ Use this app to consolidate ideas, makes notes to remember things like books or websites, and help keep infomation easy to access.

CardStar~ Use this app to keep up with all those store loyalty cards.

MomMaps~ Families want to know places to go and activities to do and this app finds them for you.

OurGroceries~ The nightmare of grocery shopping made easier with a list that multiple people can access and shop.

ScanBizCards~ This app is a great way to eliminate all those biz cards floating around your house and keeps them in your phone.

Shoeboxed~ This app is an easy way to keep up with receipts, either for your home or office.

Mint.com~ This app and computer accessed program helps you gather data for budgeting, keep a record of what you are spending your money on and even suggests improvements.

Aboutone.com~Consolidate your calendar, contacts, health information and home inventory in one spot!

List type apps including Ziplist, Wunderlist, Things, Toodledo.  No need for a paper list to lose! These apps help you stay up on what you need to do, buy, and more!

What apps are your favorites?

Work at Home: Organizing your technology

Working from home is what we do! Whether it is a part time second income or an extension of what you do every day, we add on worktime through out the day.  Being organized to work at home makes a difference in productivity and efficiency.  To do both, we need great technology tools! Here are a few suggestions to make your work more successful.

  • Log Me In.  This is a service that logs you in to your base computer. Easy to use and free, you can do your work remotely on your base computer.
  • Dropbox.  This is a service that permits file sharing.  You create an account and save your files to Dropbox to use remotely, share with others while working on a project, or save as a backup for files in the cloud.
  • GoogleDrive.  This is one of the many free google products for you to use saving and sharing files.  It can be accessed by logging into google from anywhere.
  • Skype.  This free service is for free phone and video services between users.  Download it on your computer and choose the skype phone number to call and see others.
  • Task list.  There are many to choose from, including ziplist, toodle doo, wunderlist, and remember the milk.  A task list helps you prioritize and keep all your lists in one spot!
  • Evernote. This free app for computer and smart phone allows you to capture and organize notes, audio clips, photos, and more. 

What tech tools help you be more organized to work at home?

Work at Home: Organizing Your Home Office

 

Working at home requires setting up a space that will work for you! It can be a challenge to carve out a spot to get your work done, just because there are lots of distractions. 

  • Decide on what works best for you! Some families relinquish the dining room to become an office, some families work well in the midst of the media area.  Decide if you need quiet or not, paper management and printing capability, and what tools you will use to work.  You are ready to set up your space after thinking this through.
  • Set up office hours.  With a start and end time, your time will be most productive. 
  • Paper and work go hand in hand.  For portability from the office, there are products suited just for this! You can also set up a command center for work at home and work at the office with the same tabs keeping paperwork consistently.  A file cart is a great option to slot papers in, keep them close by, and keep them organized.
  • Decide on a time you will shut down for the evening. Working at home can interfere with a good night’s sleep.  Sleep is the best way to work efficiently and effectively!

Check out my Work At Home pinterest board! http://pinterest.com/EllenDelap/work-at-home/