Not sure if it was due to my curiosity or the few free minutes I had while waiting for my programmer to respond to me on yahoo messenger, but I decided to do a search on Google for popular blogs. Whatever the reason, I ended up at a blog called, Dumb Little Man. What a great find.

I was reading through some of the posts on this neat blog when I came across one titled “10 Steps To rejuvenate Your Messy Home-Office” I believe it was a guest post, but nonetheless a great read.

Here’s an excerpt from that article (below you’ll find a link to read the entire article/post)

If you work from home, your home office is the place where you spend majority of your time during the day. If this space is a complete mess with all kinds of stuff piled up on your desk, you know that it’s doing nothing more than hurting your productivity.

Do you enjoy hunting for things under piles of paper? Aren’t you tired of torturing yourself when you can’t find that tiny but very important thumb drive because it’s buried? Most of us go crazy when we can’t find things and such craziness could be an everyday routine for a person working from a messy and cluttered home office.

I know you’ve been thinking about cleaning it up but have been constantly overpowered by fear, laziness and of course, procrastination. So it’s time to pull up your socks and get set to rejuvenate your messy home office.

You may click to continue reading the rest of the post : 10 Steps To Rejuvenate Your Messy Home-Office.

Before I head off to Toronto for the day…

Don’t be shy, you could be the winner of that ultrasexy t-shirt! Contest details reminder!

Enjoy the weekend.

Working from home is never easy. If someone tells you otherwise, they are telling you a fib. It’s even harder for mums who have to combine caring for their children and working at the same time.

I work from home and I’m a mum of a one year old, (who is currently napping while writing this). With this, I have to combine a healthy work load with an unhealthy washing load. I have to admit, I was one of the suckers who thought working from home would be a breeze. I thought that I could work for a couple of hours a day and fit in all the other duties of a mum and a wife. I was wrong… To begin with and then it started to get easier.

The first shock to the system was working with dollars rather than English pounds. I have to take my fee for the work I have completed and split it more or less in half. This sucks believe me. It may sound great that I have just been paid $150 for a job, when in reality I have only got about £75. It is much easier now as I budget with this in mind. If someone wants a quote in dollars for some work, I have to think about what I am going to be paid, not what the client is going to be paying out.

Keeping deadlines was another shock to the system. I won’t be the first person to tell you how important keeping deadlines is when you are a writer. I may be the first person to tell you that I have missed quite a few deadlines in my time. Working from home with a child is never easy and sometimes she has to come first. I always let my clients know that I am going to miss a deadline and let them know when I can have the work completed. Most of them understand, if they have children themselves all the better. Some of them however, don’t understand. For the ones that don’t understand, I simply don’t work for them again as I need clients that can understand my situation at home.

Most of my clients are American; this means that when they are sleeping I am awake. Not because I am up with a screaming baby all night, but because of the time differences. This was something else that had to be overcome. Some clients won’t understand that there is half a world between you and that you won’t be awake at 3am in the morning. Some clients won’t understand why you can’t be online waiting for emails 24 hours a day. If you find you have a client like this my advice is simple; find another one.

Just because we are freelance writers writing your articles or website for you, doesn’t mean you own us. It doesn’t mean you can dictate what we do during the day when we are not waiting for your emails. We will write your content and it will be great, just be sympathetic to parents all over the world wanting to make their child’s, and their own, life better.

This is a guest post by one latest “Featured” writer,  Sarah Folega.

Sarah is a freelance writer in the UK. She owns her own copywriting business and is currently writing a grammar book and some children’s books. You can view her website here: Copywriting, Grammar and Spelling Tips

Telecommuting is rapidly evolving into an attractive option preferred by today’s working community. Modern technology and advanced telecommunication facilities have remarkably changed the way the world works. Gone are the days where the employees have to commute to a central location and sit at his/her work desk for a stipulated amount of time. Today is the day of telecommuting, a day of comfort, convenience and happiness.

List of telecommuting benefits is really a very long one. Just a look at some of the telecommuting benefits, one would clearly understand why telecommuting is so tempting to everyone.

Among the lot of telecommuting benefits, here are 5 reasons you should consider a work from home job…

1. No Need to Travel: In the conventional employment one has to travel quite a distance from his/her home to a central location commonly termed the office. A very important telecommuting benefit is that, there’s no need for the employee to travel at all. One can work from the comfort of one’s home without any tiresome grueling drive and travel. Just imagine how important is that you have an option of being an employee without the need to have to worry about traffic & pollution. Think of the amount of energy conservation resulting because of telecommuting. This norm of working is beneficial to both an individual and the whole human community.

2. Flexible Work Hours: Telecommuting does not demand a strict, standard, highly mechanized routine. You can choose your working hours best suited to you. Your convenience is guaranteed which may result in higher productivity. This way both you and your boss are happy.

3. Spend Time with Family: One of the top five telecommuting benefits is that you have enough time with your family. It is possible for a telecommuting worker to spend  many happy hours with his/her family. This ensures mental well-being and a stress free attitude towards work.

4. Kids get Care: Telecommuting is highly suitable for stay at home moms and husbands. They will be able to work without having to sacrifice their needed support to the newborn. What more on earth a parent would ask for, than an opportunity to be with her child during their pre-school stages without foregoing the highly necessary financial income.

5. Saves Time. Saves Money. Saves Energy: In telecommuting no time is wasted on travel. No time is wasted on redundant official procedures like meetings, conferences etc. Here what is done is only what is required.  And of course telecommuting saves energy and helps a pollution free environment. It is a fabulous thing. isn’t it? That the way you work helps your child breath clean air?

As more and more people prefer telecommuting to regular commuting employment, telecommuting is no longer viewed as just an alternative. It is looked upon as a desirable option.

Social networking websites have revolutionized the way people interact. They provide a convenient platform for the global community to communicate easily and quickly.

Twitter.com is an excellent networking website where you can meet new friends and it’s a place for friends, families and co-workers, to stay connected. Since its inception Twitter.com has grown in popularity and it’s gradually morphing into a much sought after social networking website giant.

At Twitter a jobseeker can find an amazing array of opportunities, as Twitter makes it possible to meet people of same professional interest.

Joining twitter.com is very simple and easy. Once you joined you can have a list of your own friends and exactly know what they are doing at a time. Making new friends is as easy as doing a keyword search for people who share your interest, live in your city or town or people who just want to chat and share their everyday life experiences. . You can meet new people from all around the globe here who may be professionally helpful to you. Depending on how you interact with your “Tweeps” (Twitter friends) you can easily make reference that you’re on the hunt for a job and ask around if anyone knows a job lead or is hiring at the moment.

Here’s a video I created to show you how simple it is to get started with Twitter.

If you’d like to follow me on Twitter, visit http://www.twitter.com/obzokee

Be sure to leave your comments on this and other posts by using the comments links below (bottom right side).

Let your virtual assistant know how important their role is for the business and that you really appreciate them. When I worked for Mr. Ledoux, he always signed his email “I appreciate you”. I was on top of the world knowing that my boss (BTW he never made me feel inferior with the whole “boss” attitude) appreciated the work I was doing. There were the times when I did something a bit extra (maybe I turned a potential refund into a bigger purchase) and I didn’t think it went noticed. Nope! I got a message ..”Great job on that SAVE Chris and the new order - killer stuff”.

Yes, pay attention to the little extra your virtual assistant do and let them know that their efforts are not going unnoticed. Hey they’re helping you build this thing, so let them know that their role is very important.