Why you shouldn’t read blogs?

The correct headline should be: why you should not read too many blogs. And the answer is because reading too many blogs takes time which else could have been devoted to taking action. Reading too many blogs would paralyze you. There are so many blogs out there, each one of them presenting different point of view, calls to different part of your mind. How can you respond to all?

How many should you read?

As many as you can in maximum two hours of time. I know I have been very liberal in allotting time to blog reading and I should have only asked for one hour. But we need to go slow when persuading people to change habit, or else our effort will not bear desirable result.

In the beginning, you should read and understand fully as many blogs as you can in 1-2 hours every day. Not a single minute extra should be wasted on this activity. But over time, you should reduce this time spent on blogging to 45-30 minutes.

What should you do in spare time then?

You should read books, industry journal, watch documentary, do research, or talk to people. In short, you should engage yourself in activities that give you more benefit. It is more about ROI on time invested. Some good blogs, like this one, do give you higher ROI on your time, but surfing through low-quality blogs take away from the overall benefit you get from reading a blog post.

Reading blog can be advantageous, and it often is, but indulging too much into it will reduce your productivity. So be judicious in your time allocation.

So what is the bottom line?

The bottom line is this: you must read various blogs, but your reading should not be limited to blog reading only. You should read from other sources as well. The varied your sources will be, the richer your experience will be.

Learn to impress your boss

• Always be pro-active. Don’t wait for order to work. Find solution to problems even if not assigned to you. It will unveil your potential and dedication too.
• Always attend the training sessions. Broaden your horizon. It will help you to learn and grow. It also shows your interest.
• Take good care of your health. A bad health could run down your productivity and all career dreams.
• Know your boss’s priorities. If he judges quality by quantity, quantify your result. If he is inclined towards client satisfaction, treat client as the sole purpose of your work. Customize your working style as per your boss’s attitude towards work. No boss likes contradicting employees.
• Follow your boss. If he is more comfortable with telephonic conversation that email, follow the same. Study him or her for a while before grasping and adopting his style of conduct.
• Always ask questions. It will reflect your interest in work, curiosity towards new things. Ask unexpected questions reflecting your intellect and deep analytical skill. Your boss would flaunt you everywhere then.
• There’s no problem in seeking or providing help. When you need help ask for it. If you are capable of lending a helpful hand, don’t hesitate either.
• Do everything with a personalized touch of yours. That’s what makes you different from the rest. Do the same job in your own style. But don’t let the logic fly off. Within given limitations try to add your own style. It could be your superb style of writing or even just a small entertaining act before the big presentation.
• Be punctual throughout your career life except few emergencies. Always come on time. You could reach earlier too. Reach meetings on time. It reflects responsible behavior. Don’t be absent often.
• Always meet deadlines. Make sure you complete your task before the due date. At the same time quality shouldn’t be compromised.
• Don’t be afraid to voice your thoughts and ideas. Your observations and ideas could be very important for the company. Speak up with confidence. Raise new points. He will definitely appreciate your concern and interest. It will also set a good tuning of yours with your boss. If he sees good potential in you, he may consult you every time when he needs to decide upon new things.
• Last but not the least, always be his fan. Every boss needs a little stroke of his ego, little appreciation, little admiration and lot of flattering. Following his examples could fetch him great compliments.

Follow the tips I have shared in both the articles, and you will always make a place in the good book of your bosses.

Show what you are capable of

Not everyone out there is hunting for young employees; in other words, not everyone is concerned about employees’ in one’s company. These people are more concerned about their present productivity, which they believe can only be boosted if employees with certain experience join their team. For these employers, the more experienced the team is the better result they will get. Capitalize of this line of thinking, and strengthen your candidacy by showing your experience. Also tell them what you can do for them, if hired.

Find employer seeking older employees

Not everyone loves young workforce, some take it for inexperienced lot that cannot deliver. This group of employers is looking for people who have ground knowledge of their field and know how things take shape. This group of employees will be a good fit for you. Search for such companies and apply categorically mentioning your experience.

Legal action upon discrimination

I know this is not good, and I wish it never come to that, but in some situations it becomes absolute must. Under the law of our nation, no employer can discriminate on the basis of age, so when push comes to shove, you should take an employer to the court of law. But you must understand that proving it will not be easy, regardless, you should seek legal action if you are discriminated against. You should not suffer due to your age.

Although I will not recommend legal course of action, as it is nothing but waste of precious time, which can be used to find a job. I also do not support any kind of discrimination, so if your age is told to be the reason for not getting a job then go forward and prove it in the court.

It has been heavy stuff here. Let’s take a break with a promise to meet in the next installment. Till then stay fit and keep looking. And yes do not forget to comment.

So firstly, remember that your home business is just as professional as a company that works out of an office building, and respect the job as such.  With that as your start, here are a few tips that can help you set up your business:

-Organize a home office that will be regarded strictly as your working space.  The office is a part of your home, but remember this is no different than if you went into an office building 9-5 like most people.  Remember that you’re not at home when you’re supposed to be working.

-Schedule out your activities and effectively plan your day.  Keeping on top of the situation, and maximizing productivity means sticking to a schedule.  That’s the only way to set yourself up for as much success as possible.

-Make sure that you research all applicable tax laws.  The last thing you’re going to want to deal with is a tax problem, so research the information now opposed to later.  As a self employed businessperson, the tax laws are going to be very different, so read them and know them, and always file on time.

-Once again in the treating your business like the real business it is vein, make sure that you’re covered by insurance.  Any sort of business owner’s insurance that you feel applies to you, is something you should definitely look into.  Every business needs insurance.  Don’t wait until it’s too late, ever!

Shorter and not-too-frequent breaks revive our senses and boost up our productivity, but when breaks tend to get longer and more frequent, we start losing focus.

Why does it happen?

To understand this let’s ask ourselves why we take breaks during the days. We take break to free up our mind from the task at hand so that we can relax and get more fresh idea when we return back to working. A break helps us focus our mind on seeing forest instead of focusing on trees, which helps us complete our work quickly.

But,

When the breaks get longer, we lose the momentum, and ideas that were building up while working on the project slips put of our mind, which means poor incoherent output. The longer breaks clear up information related to the problems from our mind, and when we return we need to rethink on where we were and at what point we took break. Most of the time, after loss of some quality time, things starts coming to us, but there is no guarantee that everything will return back. Longer breaks take us out of the zone.

How many and how long?

Do not take more than 2-3 breaks during the work hour, you can stretch the limit to 4, but not even a single break more than that. And the duration of the break should depend upon the time of the day. If you are taking a break in the morning, which I do not recommend, then the break should not be 2-3 minutes long, but when the break is coming towards the end of the day when you are exhausted with the day’s work, you can make the break a little longer. 8-10 minutes will be good enough for the last break.

Taking breaks during the work is important, but taking too many and too long breaks throw us out of the productivity zone.

How to avoid it?

Fortunately, there is a way out of it, which anyone of you can use to avoid distraction, regardless of your situation.

Assign yourself a place of work

This is the must-take action for any freelance writer. It is not good to carry your laptop and sit anywhere in your home to work, well occasional working-in-kitchen will not hurt but do not make it a routine. I know it sounds against the spirit of freelance writing—you can work from anywhere and anytime—but this is worth a deviation. Find a lonely corner in your house and turn it into a workplace.

Fix your work hours

I may sound like talking against the freedom of freelance writing, but my intention is not to drag you back into the 9-5 job that you left in the past, it is only to help you produce more. And as it is you can anytime pull the string and call it off.

Work, no matter what

Once you fix your work hour, you should stick to it, no matter what. Well, you can deviate from “no matter what” principle without any guilt feeling when you know you need to. Occasion deviation never hurts, at least not in our profession.

Talk to your family

At times, getting things write just need a word from us. Talk to your family and tell them that you are working around here, so not to create distraction. Well this might not work with a disgruntled spouse, but in most of the cases, this will be enough. Believe it or not, they understand the value of the work you are doing.

As you can see, fighting off distraction does not take so much of muscle power as much it takes discipline and tactics. What are your tactics to fight this monster off? Use the comment box and tell me your strategies.

Investing in computers and computer networks enables you to develop more convenient ways of carrying out day to day operations.  IT tools can help you automate functions that normally someone would have to go through each time, enabling a person to focus on a more important task.  This way you save money for the time they don’t have to spend on a pointless task, and also allow for that person to be free to attend to a more pressing concern.

Information Technology will allow you to create a broader spectrum of easy collaboration with your staff.  By networking their computers you enable everyone to communicate quickly, and more effectively on the fly.  This way they can accommodate for changing needs and services as the changes happen in real time.  All enabling you to keep relevant no matter how quickly the times change.

Finally information management will completely change with the influence of modern IT methodology.  Through IT you can effectively store your information and vital business data in a different way, allowing you to access your archives faster with more accurate information.  This could prove invaluable, and just another reason that your business should make sure to have a plentiful IT budget.  With Information Technology you could change the face of your business, and maneuvering yourself for success like never before.

Record what you do and eliminate unnecessary things

In order to take time out from your daily schedule, you need to figure out how you spend your day. Start with recording everything that you do in your daily life. Once you have a complete list of things that you do in any day of the week, start striking out the thing you can do without. You will be amazed to see how much time you wasted in idle talks, and television watching. These things are important, but when done in excess, they can kill your productivity.

Cut on rests

One needs to work hard, if one wants to achieve something. You need to cut on sleeping, and lunchtime rests to take time out to write. You can use this time to write down the thoughts that come to you, or even use this time to develop your story.

Write while you travel

Well, this is not always possible to write when you are going from one place to another, but you can always use this time to write down the key points, which you can further develop at your leisure.

Talk to your family and ask for support

Take your family in confidence and speak your mind, tonight on the dinner table. Tell them what you are planning to do. Ask your partner, or parents to look after your kids at least once a week, so that you can have some free time to write. If you have grownup kids then ask them to do the house works once a week to help you in taking time out to write.

No priority list: This is the first thing in the list because I wanted to tell you emphatically the importance of having a prioritized to-do list. In the absence of such list you will not know what is more important and what can wait till evening. Hence, what you end up doing first in the morning is the thing that was not at all important.

A pile of task: This is almost always unmanageable. A huge list of work to complete will just immobilize you and you cannot accomplish anything, so bite only what you can chew, and leave rest on the plate for others.

Wrong Timing: This is important. Do the critical work in the morning when you are fresh, and push the less important works for the rest of the day. Checking mail in the morning takes away the time in which you could have accomplished many important things.

Untidy Mailbox: This kills your time more than anything else. Too many mails in your mailbox will not boost your productivity; rather it will stamp it down. You need to organize your mailbox by filing important mails in folders and deleting the unnecessary ones.

No Do Not Disturb Sign: This is very important. In the office, being accessible to your subordinates, colleagues and bosses is considered professionalism. It indeed will win you many friends and support, but at times this will result in delayed reports and missed deadlines. Hence, you need to put “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door when you have important work with a tight deadline to finish.

Working Long Hours: If someone told you that working for hours in a stretch will fetch you great result then he was wrong. You need to take breaks at equal intervals to recharge your battery. The more relax you will be the better result will come out. Working continuously does nothing but worn you out.

Stand Up and Say No: Saying no is a good thing. It says you care and that you know the importance of the additional work that is going to get assigned to you. If you say no when you are caught up, this way you will not only save yourself from missing deadlines due to overload, but this will also help your organization get the work done through someone else who is free at that time.

The hardware is the first component of the computer that we come in contact with and care should be taken to keep it clean. This not only increase ones productivity it also is a healthy approach.Imagine touching a mouse that has layers of grease from centuries and centuries of sticky finger contacts, or a keyboard that has tons of overnight snacks embedded between it´s keys, this obviously is a cause for alarm.

The steps to clean ones hardware does not not involve any special product than the simple traditional methods of a soft brush,a little water and maybe a piece of cloth .It is important that a day is set aside to do this so as to avoid disturbance during the process. There also has to be an established order in mind to know which parts you intend to clean first.

After unplugging all components and and an order has been mentally established to clean the different components, all that is left now is patience.The keyboard which is basically the ‘hands’ of the whole system can suffer alterations if dust and crumbs are not taken from it quickly.To remove dirt from the keyboard one can use a professional keyboard cleaner that has been adapted justly for this purpose. Turning the Keyboard over on a piece of paper and gently shaking it to remove all accumulated dust ,one then passes a soft brush to remove any excess dirt on the outside of the Keyboard.The same applies for Laptops.

The monitor and the CPU can both be cleaned using a non-abrasive cloth to remove any excess of dirt. Areas like the USB ports generally have accumulated dust and once again the use of a small soft brush is handy. For those you wish to use a professional Laptop screen cleaner , this is highly optional, but one will achieve the same results with simple conventional methods.The aim of all of this is that you clean and not destroy while cleaning.

The mouse is another gadget that allows us to enjoy an efficient user interface with our system and with the realms beyond(Internet).Excess dust and grime will compromise it´s function and you will notice this based on the time response it gives when you move it. Care should be taken in opening it and a soft bush should be used so as to not damage it.

There is no need to open the casing of the CPU nor the Laptop. All that requires cleaning resides on the external part of the casing. If you are not a professional, opening may void all warranty rights and you may unintentionally damage some internal part.The use of cotton to clean is a good option but I prefer a brush.