5 Things Your Home Office Really Needs

5 Things Your Home Office Really Needs

Setting up your home office is really fun and exciting and, if you aren’t careful, really expensive.

It’s so easy to be tempted by articles listing must-haves.

Yes, most of those articles are filled with products and services that would be nice to have and, sometimes, will even make running your business marginally easier.

At the same time, most of those articles are playing a little fast and loose with the term “need.”

Here are the only five things that you actually need in your home office to get your business up and running, and some of them aren’t even things at all. Click Here to Read Article …

4 Clients Freelancers Should Avoid

4 Clients Freelancers Should Avoid

We freelancers perform without a net. We are constantly taking plenty of risks with potential clients — one of them being simply not getting paid.

This can mean getting stiffed, or it can mean having your work deemed unacceptable and facing the threat of not getting your much-needed compensation.

However, we also risk such frustrations as facing inefficient working styles that slow us down and make our overall freelancing life less successful than it should be.

Or we experience unpleasant interactions that hurt morale and thus threaten our freelancing career in general.

It’s true that in every field there are annoyances, and there may be some good personality traits associated with being able to put up with these. To some extent they’re unavoidable. But here’s a guide to minimizing things that slow you down or that detract from the success — financial and spiritual — of your freelancing life.

If you have enough available work to be able to avoid potential clients who look like trouble, it’s a matter of heeding certain warning signs. Here are the ones of which I’m aware. Click Here to Read Article …

5 Habits that Boost Productivity

5 Habits that Boost Productivity

If you feel like you are always grappling with stress related to work, complaining about the workload and struggling to meet the deadlines while a colleague of yours is blazing all the way to glory with his superb work and productivity, something is wrong.

A little introspection would certainly help.

What is it that is keeping you from being as productive as your peers? Why do you feel drained halfway through the day?

Assuming that you love your work and have an inner desire to excel, it’s time to introduce some changes in your daily habits in order to deliver your best work. Click Here to Read Article …

When Is It Time to Quit Your Job?

When Is It Time to Quit Your Job?

Leaving a job, particularly one that you thought was a great fit for you and your career, may be a difficult decision to make.

Sometimes that decision is easy — we know early on that it’s a matter of time before we jump or get pushed to leave.

But in most other cases, it is not that clear cut.

There are obviously benefits to staying or we wouldn’t still be here, but clearly something — maybe a lot of things — are nagging at us, or we wouldn’t be having that internal debate.

So how do you know when it’s time to stay or go? It’s much easier to decide to stay and hope that things get better, but in other cases you might as well get out now. Here are a few situations that should get you thinking about moving to a new job or a new organization. Click Here to Read Article …

5 Tips to Get Along with Your Boss

5 Tips to Get Along with Your Boss

Work environments create strange bedfellows, bringing people together from all walks of life.

And while individual job roles are clearly delineated, the whole team is essentially working on the same project — keeping the organization viable.

As a result, harmony is essential for maximizing productivity and keeping job satisfaction high.

Given the diverse representation in the workforce and the wide range of personalities striving to accomplish organizational goals, conflict between workers arises as a natural part of doing business.

The keys to successful operational management and maintaining peak output is resolving conflict in productive ways. Click Here to Read Article …

What Freelancers Can Learn From TV Characters

What Freelancers Can Learn From TV Characters

Freelancers have to be people of tremendous character — our own decisions rule our destiny.

Freelancing means more self-motivation, creating our own atmosphere and learning on the job .

They say art imitates life, but I’ve heard the opposite as well.

There is plenty of art we could look to, but who doesn’t love a little television?

Here’s a look at some life lessons to take — and leave — from some of our favorite TV characters, past and present. Click Here to Read Article …

8 Tips to Relax After a Long Day

8 Tips to Relax After a Long Day

Who we are at work can vary. For some people, their career is all-consuming. For others, work is simply something to help pay the bills.

Some individuals are only present in the workplace during their specified shift and then quickly go about their personal business as soon as the workday ends.

Others feel the need to extend their workday because they either yearn to go above and beyond, or perhaps they find it difficult to separate business from pleasure after the workday is over.

Most people around the world will typically spend most of their waking hours in the workplace, which is a startling fact of life. Click Here to Read Article …

How to Turn Stress into Productivity

How to Turn Stress into Productivity

We all know that stress is bad for us, right?

Maybe not.

Now both researchers and management experts are recognizing that some stress can actually be good for us too.

That’s right; some stress can lead to enhanced performance, improved productivity and allow us to complete tasks and projects that we thought were impossible.

So what can we do to manage stress and turn it into productivity? Click Here to Read Article …