working from home – my 10 tips
I first worked from home in the early 1980s and I’ve now been doing it full time for 8 years. My ten top tips for survival are:
1 – Have a timetable. I’m an early riser, and usually working around 0600. I make a point of going no later that 0800 before getting upstairs for a shave, shower and get some clothes on; at least smart casual – going native is not clever. If you’re smart and looking ready for work, you’ll think like work: Behave like a slob and it’ll show in your work,
2 – Schedule your day in whatever way works for you, but take breaks. I don’t do more that 90 minutes on the computer without stopping to do something different. A brisk walk round the block a couple of times a day is good. It gets the blood flowing and that gets oxygen into the brain. Other 15 minute distractions I’ll use include time in the garden doing a little weeding or pruning or to do some prep work on tonight’s dinner.
3 – Set yourself deadlines and monitor progress. Plan to get x number of calls made, write x hundred words or to finish certain tasks (or make a start on them). Use a desk diary or put it on Outlook or your phone or whatever, but do have a plan for the day/week/month.
4 – It’s easy to forget to eat and drink properly and neither omission will do you any good. Avoid too much caffeine, and eat sensible foods. One way of taking a break I use is to prepare a decent lunch. I take my food break at the dining table as well, sat up properly to aid digestion. Always aim to take your refreshment breaks at regular times.
5 – Try to have a working area set up in the home so that you do, if effect, go to the office and leave the office. It is an important psychological break point. If you don’t have a separate area and have to use the couch or the dining table then have a couple of stacking crates that you keep your files and working stuff in so that you can pack away and put the boxes in the corner. You have to maintain separate home and office regimes.
6 – One of my cyber pals talks about life – work harmony. He doesn’t like the term Balance in this context and I think that he’s right. It is more about harmony in your life and ensuring that you, and the other people in your life, feel good about your lifestyle.
7 – Replace those water cooler moments with some other form of business contact. For me that’s a business club. What you need is a couple of hours every couple of weeks where you can relax and chat with fellow business people from a variety of functions. If there are presentations you’ll learn from them and get the chance to do your own which practices another skill.
8 – Don’t feel guilty about time shifting your hours. If you want to use daylight or weekdays for something personal, as long as you hit your deadlines, do it, but try to make the time in advance by putting the evening or weekend hours in first: It’s hard to play catch up.
9 – Stay safe: Take care with cables and extension leads even if you are the only one home. Keep information and equipment secure, and do your back ups. It’s your office.
10 – Have fun – otherwise there’s no point.
[tweetmeme source=”bowenjohnj”]
what goes where
I started this blog with no clear idea of what I was doing. Social networking was new to me and I just wanted to get started.
Today I’ve put into place the thoughts that have been coming together thanks to the input of others around cyberspace that have helped me.
This blog will now become my area for blogging thoughts on leadership and team building together with sharing my own experiences so that others can, I hope, benefit from my failures and successes.
John J Bowen’s blog will take the more random thoughts that I sometimes come up with and be a bit more of a personal blog.
Gulfhaven News will blog updates from my primary business identity.
Links to the other blogs are over on the right of this blog page and, when I’ve worked through the mill later today all three blogs will have links to each other and my various web sites.
You’ll also find links here on this page to some of the other business sites and blogs that I find useful.
Thanks for dropping by, or following me, and I’ll try and keep it interesting and relevant. Let me know what you think.
The Principles of Warehouse Design 3rd edition
I was honoured to be invited to contribute 2 chapters to this latest edition and am pleased to confirm that the launch has been announced for 10 March 2010. More news will be on the web site of the Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport (CILT) and I’ll update this blog and my own web sites as the timing and venue are confirmed.
Congratulations to Peter and his team for their efforts in pulling the project together.
monday musing on sunday?
Tomorrow (Jan 25) will see my eleventh Monday Musing post and I’m quite proud of that. The original idea was that I would sit down on a Monday and write something, but work looked like it would interfere so I began to write in advance and set up scheduled publishing. Tomorrows was written today, and is the first of a different challenge.
When I began these weekly blogs (as opposed to the random postings that crop up here) it was in response to a suggestion from I guy I met at the airport lounge in JFK earlier last year. He gave me some good advice on social networks generally and which I’ve followed up on since, but it was he who suggested that I write weekly and to use a general thread, in my case teambuilding and leadership.
My new challenge is to write to a consistant length of 600 words (tomorrow’s is 599). This has come from a friend who is a former journalist and we have a bet of lunch riding on it. I have to deliver 600 words (plus or minus 10) for the next 6 weeks. If I can she is paying, if not it’s down to me.
So I shall try. I follow a number of columists and admire their ability to punch out their daily or weekly thoughts, so now it is my turn to try and emulate them. This entry doesn’t count by the way, it is the Monday morning entries that payment for our lunch will hinge on. I’m looking forward to trying.
clients going bust – a leadership challenge
I got back from the US last week to find that one of my clients hadn’t paid me for the previous month’s invoice. My initial reaction was “here we go again”; some clients do have to be chased. My work with this one was on cost cutting, but not paying people isn’t one of my recommendations!
As they were on my route the next day I thought I’d call in for a chat, but got there to find the premises vacant and with a To Let sign outside. Enquiries since have revealed that they had ceased business the day I flew out to America (and the day on which I had posted my second invoice).
At first I felt anger for myself. They owe me a decent sum and I can ill afford to lose it (I will be a long way down the list of creditors). But then I thought of the people who had worked there: 90 or so decent people who came in day after day and did their best and I wondered how they were going to cope, out of a job a month before Christmas, bills hard to pay and jobs hard to find.
I have put aside any feelings of sorrow for my own position; I’m big enough, old enough and ugly enough (check my photo) to survive losing what I am owed and just feel sad for those who have lost their sole source of income. Do I blame the company? To a degree, but they did at least try to do something in hiring me. Too late though, as they had barely started to put my initial proposals in place before the plug was pulled.
What can I do? Could I have saved them? I’m not going to claim that I could have, but what I can do is try to make sure that what I provide for my clients is the very best that I can. Whilst, as a consultant, I may not have executive responsibility when at a client’s site, I am still a leader, and have a leader’s responsibility to stand up and be counted, to challenge what is wrong and to show what is right.
Whilst over in the USA I was reminded of a quote that I believe came from Martin Luther King; “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy”.
These are trying times still, and the world needs its leaders, at all levels, to show their mettle. Whoever that quote comes from, let us all try to live up to it.
thought for today
My successes have shaped me, but my failures made me.
too close for comfort
Over the last few days I’ve suffered a short-term case of partial deafness in one ear and significantly impaired ability to speak, all because a routine wisdom tooth extraction went wrong (my dentist pulled the top off the tooth and left the rest in place). The knock on effects left me with about 50% loss of hearing in one ear and a tongue so swollen that I could barely make an intelligible sound.
Whatever I call myself I am, effectively, a professional communicator. To be suddenly plunged into a world where two of my faculties have been dramatically affected has been traumatic to say the least.
Fortunately I am well on the way back to normality and looking forward to my upcoming trip to our Florida retreat, but it has given me a renewed appreciation of what it is to have all my senses working normally. My thought for today is to appreciate what you’ve got and enjoy it.
Wishing you all happy health.
A Bit About What I Do
Just a quick summary of what I do, in no special order:
1 – I am a Trainer. Mostly in running in house courses for companies, but also at professional and business gatherings. Key topics include; customer service, purchasing, leadership and team building.
2 – I am a mentor tosenior managers, young managers and management teams. As an experienced senior manager and non-executive director I can help with business direction and team building.
3 – I am a consultant. I help businesses through the experience I’ve gained from many years of senior management. I am a general manager and Non Executive Director, but with specific experience in procurement, sales, facilities management and logistics.
4 – I am a speaker at conferences and business gatherings, and have become something of an industry pundit over the last year.
5 – I am not an academic, but have co-authored the latest version of the standard hanbook The Principles of Warehouse Design, published by the Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport (CILT) and Cranfield University and I am also setting professional examination questions at levels 4, 5 and 6 for the British Institute of Facilities Management.
6 – I am an experienced (and qualified) interviewer and assessor of people.
If I can help you or your business in any way please get in touch.
it’s about the people
I’ve said elsewhere here in one of my rants that companies run on people, not staff, and I’m pained to see some of the actions that managers and leaders are taking at the moment. Yes, times are hard and tough decisions have to be made, many of which mean that people will earn less or stop earning. That’s life, but there are ways and means of doing things and, at the heart of it all, is that you have to recognise that making anything happen depends on people.
I have a passion for people; for treating them fairly and enabling them to get the best out of themselves. This is not some overnight revalation. It is the result of having experienced both sides (being a person and dealing with people). I’ve seen the good and I’ve seen the bad. I know which is the right way and, having got this off my chest, I’m going out to put some of it into practice.
Have a great day!
I support this charity
British Blogs
the Monday Musings column from that consultant bloke 