02 Jan 11 When to Work When Guests Are At Your Home
One of the biggest challenges of a work from home professional is to find time to work, particularly when guests are there or there is a holiday. Meeting deadlines in such cases become a real challenge, but what is needed to be done should be done. There is no way out of it, unless you want to lose the client and his business forever.
In the times when your guests are at your home, you may need to exert yourself more, as you will work doubly — once to spend time with people you love and once to delight your customers with your impeccable work. We all face this kind of problem, and fortunately there is a way out of it. When I say a way out of it, I do not mean an easy way. Let me fist tell you about the ways out of it then you can decide to take it or leave it (this phrase sounds so filmy, isn’t it? Like the Godfather giving an unpleasant deal).
Work in the night
Once you have had all the laughs of the world, it is time to burn mid-night oil. This is kind of difficult, but you can manage it provided you do not end-up dining at mid-night. Stay awake for one or two hours in the night to finish the work.
Work Early morning
Waking up one hour early than usual could be tried. You can use this time to finish the works in due time. Early morning could be good, as your guests will not be waking so early, and nor will your kids and spouse.
Apart from these obvious times, you can also utilize the unplanned free time to complete the assignment. This way you will able to meet deadlines without sacrificing much on the fun your family and your guests are having. As I see, guests are not evil. They give you opportunity to break away from the monotonous life. Why not use it to the fullest? And to maintain pace of the work, do as suggested above.
Tags: Break, Challenges, Deal Work, Due Time, Face, Fist, Free Time, Fun, Godfather, Home Professional, Laughs, Love, Opportunity, Pace, Phrase
01 Sep 10 How to Take Frequent Breaks Without Losing on Article Quality
In the last article, we talked why it is important for a write to finish one article in one sitting. I supplied quite a handful of reasons to support my claim. While writing that piece, at the back of my mind I had this feeling that there are times when a writer cannot just sit and write. He is bound to get distracted. What to do in such situations? And then I came with something that will help all of us leave our half-finished articles to attend other matters at hand. Let’s see how we can do that.
Prepare a structure for the article
Before you begin writing, you should create a structure of the article. When you undertake this exercise what you are basically doing is creating a skeleton which you will later fill with flesh, blood, and muscles. The structure of an article provides it a basic framework that will later be developed in a full grown article.
Divided the contents in subheadings
Once you know how your final article will look like, you need to divide your articles into sections and sub-sections using headings and subheadings for better readability. To break an article into sections and subsections apply the rule of thumb given below. The rule of thumb is: always put the important ideas into headings of an article, so that people know what individual paragraphs will talk about, and what the article, as a whole, is about.
Write down main points
Now it is time to add some flesh to the structure you have created so far. Under each headings and subheadings, write 2 or 3 bullet points that summarize the central idea of each paragraph, and which add up to make the complete paragraph.
That is it. You are done. Now only the filling up step is left, which could be done anytime, even after one or more breaks.
As said, the final step in the process is to write content beneath headings and subheadings using the main points (bullet points) that you have listed. By following this guide, you will be able to write good quality articles even when you take frequent breaks.
Tags: Back Of My Mind, Bound, Break, Bullet Points, Central Idea, Exercise, Flesh Blood, Frequent Breaks, Handful, Headings And Subheadings, Muscles, Paragraph, Paragraphs, People, Readability, Rule Of Thumb, Skeleton
31 Jul 10 3 Time Wasters to Avoid If You Want to Make It Big In Life
Time is the currency in which corporate warriors trade in. And why just corporate warriors, we all do business using this currency only, but not everyone – in fact most of us – are wise with the way we spend time. We often splurge on spending time chit-chatting or just day dreaming, which we should not. But to defeat the “time wasting” monsters, we need to figure out first who they are and where they are. The aim of this blog post is to do that only. To make you aware of the 3 biggest time wasters, so that you can fight it off.
3 time wasting monsters
Personal conversation
This is the most dangerous monster that covertly follows you everywhere, which you always fail to notice until it’s already late. You can find this monster lurking around in your office and even in your home. It makes you feel that you are doing some important discussion, but the fact is you are not. You are just wasting time talking about your personal stuff when you should be working on the project at hand.
There is a time and place for personal discussion. Confine it there only. Do not let it disturb your work schedule.
Frequently checking e-mails
E-mails are important, and some are very important. But none of them is as important as the work you have at your hand, so it will be more fruitful to spend time on doing the work than checking mails, regularly.
Make a mail checking routine. I would suggest checking your mails once or twice a day, but if you expect important mails throughout the day or if you cannot live without browsing through your inbox then check your mail 4 times a day, at max. Do not let this monster kill your time.
Breaks
Taking breaks during a day is important, as it help you energize yourself. A break helps you remove your thought from the project, and hence get a fresh perspective on the subject matter, when you get back to it after the break. But frequent or too many breaks do not allow you to come back to the subject matter, ruining the purpose of the break itself.
Too many breaks create distraction, so avoid indulging in that. In fact, I will suggest you to make a “break taking” plan around your work schedule. This will keep you on track, and the plan will keep this “time wasting” monster contained.
These 3 monsters should be avoided at any cost, if your goal is to do anything with your life.
Tags: Aim, Break, Chit, Currency, Inbox, Life Time, Mail, Monster, Monsters, Personal Conversation, Personal Stuff, Perspective, Ruin, Spending Time, Splurge, Subject Matter, Time And Place, Time Wasters, Warriors, Wasting Time
