“The 5 Fundamental Rules Of Working From Home” plus 2 more

The 5 Fundamental Rules Of Working From Home
Lessons Learned: What The Liquidation Of Borders Can Teach Us About Stagnation
5 Ways to Get Faster Email Responses

The 5 Fundamental Rules Of Working From Home

Posted: 19 Jul 2011 09:00 AM PDT

Suppose you finally took the plunge: resigned your corporate job, decided to follow the passion of your life and (by lack of a new office space, of course), you started to work from home. Welcome to the club! Been there for a few years now and, guess what, it turned out that working from home is not as simple as I thought it would be.

It certainly has a tons of advantages, but those advantages won't come in a sugary, care free, or all pinky and happy-go-lucky package. On the contrary. When you work from home, maintaining a constant productivity flow may be a real challenge. And there are many reasons for that.

For instance, you may still unconsciously assimilate your home with your relaxation space, hence a little nap on the couch, in the middle of the day, with still a ton of unfinished tasks, may seem like a viable option. Well, not! Or, because you're working from home now, you think you can endlessly postpone some of your projects for ever, since nobody is on your back anymore. You're your own boss and decided to be a gentle one. Fatal mistake. Or…

OK, let's stop with the reasons right here and move on to the practical part. So, what can you do to squeeze each and every inch of usefulness and productivity from your new working space and schedule (namely, your home)? What follows is a short list of what I found to be fundamentally necessary when you walk on this path.

1. Set Up A Specific Workplace

And stay there. That specific workspace may be a specific room (your home office), or a part of a room. Whatever it is, it must be clearly designed as a work area, with as little interference from your home space as possible. The coexistence of your home and work space is just a happy accident. But just because of that, those two spaces don't necessarily have to blend together.

If you move your work space constantly around various parts of your house, instead of a single “anchor space”, something awkward will happen. Your home won't feel like home anymore. That's one of the most popular reasons for quitting working form home: "My home didn't feel like home anymore". Of course it didn't if you mixed all its parts with your work space.

2. Split Work Into Edible Chunks

Don't aim too high. Don't expect to do big chunks of work in a single step. That was one of the most surprising situations I encountered when I first started to work from home. Instead of a steady, constant flow of sustained activity, all I could do were short, compact sessions on various projects. It took a while to understand why.

When you work in a populated workspace, you behave differently. There is a subtle field of energy created by humans when they're in their own proximity, and that field alone can be enough of an incentive to do much more than you normally do. Well, when you're at home, alone, this ain't gonna happen. That's why you should use whatever productivity technique you're comfortable with to split your work in small, edible chunks: GTD, pomodoro, or Assess-Decide-Do.

3. Work Outside Home

In coffee shops or other places, like shared offices. It may sound a little bit counterintuitive, to work outside your home when you're working from home. But only in the beginning. You'll soon realize that working from home doesn't mean you have to stay there all the time. It basically means your home is also your office and you're free to go outside if you want to.

I know this may not apply to all of the "work from home" situations, but for those related to information processing, when all you need is a laptop an internet connection, that usually works beautifully. It adds a very necessary element of diversity and freshness. It can also be the source of some very interesting social interactions, especially when you have to solve all sort of digital nomad situations.

4. Go Out!

Working from home may be socially alienating. After almost 3 years of doing it, I finally accepted this as a fact. So, apart from balancing your home time with consistent sessions of working outside of your home, you should definitely go out more often. Our normal work routine, the one that is performed in an office, that is, makes for an important slice of our social interaction needs. Once you're working from home, that slice won't be there anymore. But your need for social contacts will remain constant.

So, my solution to this was to grow my social interaction significantly over what I was having when I was working in my own office. Going out to movies, running in the park, meeting for drinks or just chat, whatever it takes to get me out of my home/working space. On a one to ten scale, my social life before was around 3 and now is at a steady 7.

5. Thoroughly Log Each And Every Day

It goes hand in hand with keeping a personal journal, but this time it's about work, not personal feelings and experiences. Keep a detailed log of each project and be always ready to pick up from where you left one day or one week ago in just a matter of minutes. It's not only a productivity enhancer, although it will help you be more productive, but it's more on the accountability area.

When you work from home you're your own boss. And, for any of you who are (or have been) bosses, this is not an easy position. You gotta keep track of all the information about your team and of every advancement in your projects. That's what a boss is supposed to do, after all. When you work from home you have to perform this bossy role too, otherwise you will be lost in your own unfinished ideas and endless project stubs faster than you think.

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Any work from home readers? Would love to hear your tips in the comments.

Lessons Learned: What The Liquidation Of Borders Can Teach Us About Stagnation

Posted: 19 Jul 2011 07:30 AM PDT

Getty Images / Jeff Mitchell

If you haven’t heard the news about Borders shutting down its remaining retail stores, then Paid Content has got your back:

“Borders is closing its 399 remaining stores and 11,000 employees are being laid off. In a statement, Borders Group President Mike Edwards said, "We were all working hard towards a different outcome, but the headwinds we have been facing for quite some time, including the rapidly changing book industry, e-reader revolution, and turbulent economy, have brought us to where we are now."”

Being a past Borders’ customer this news sort of saddens me, especially when about 4 months ago they closed my local store. But to tell you the truth it really isn’t that surprising. Borders Group President Mr. Edwards is right about the “headwinds” and the “rapidly changing book industry” but this the exact cause of why Borders is going totally out of business.

The real reason is stagnation and the idea that “we are too big to fail”, not new unpredictable markets that just swooped in and took up all their business.

Years ago, Borders could have done something to counteract the adoption of the Kindle and by the time the iPad made its way to consumer’s hands, Borders was pretty much out of luck.

Don’t let it happen to you

I’m a technologist and developer. Because of that, having a up-to-date skills and understanding of technology is something that I have to spend time and attention on. Without it, the “headwinds” of my industry will sweep me away and make me useless. Without spending considerable effort staying current my “changing industry” will eat me alive. Sounds familiar, huh?

So, instead of sitting back and being happy with where you are in your skills and understanding of your profession or industry, you should always be identifying opportunities to improve yourself by learning and gaining a better understanding of your work. If you aren’t doing that, then you are stagnating just as Borders has.

Via [Paid Content]

5 Ways to Get Faster Email Responses

Posted: 19 Jul 2011 06:00 AM PDT

Faster Email Responses After putting together a course on How To Email Important People and speaking with nearly 200 individuals about their email habits, I’ve noticed a few common problems that people have with email.

The number one complaint is that people don’t get responses to the emails they send out.

Here is an sampling of the statements I heard:

“I can’t tell if my emails are being read or not. I hate it when people don’t respond.”

“I don’t know when or if my emails are being read. Sometimes I feel like I’m spitting words into an electronic abyss.”

“I can’t guarantee people are just throwing my emails away, but if they are reading them, they certainly aren’t responding.”

Well, I don’t have all the answers, but I do have a few suggestions. Here are five ways to get faster responses through email.

1. Write shorter emails

People love to procrastinate. And anytime a long email hits our inbox, that’s another excuse to procrastinate.

It’s hard to send a fast response to a long email because it requires time to read, time to digest, and time to respond. Moreover, most long emails include multiple questions or topics, which can make it tough for the reader to determine what is important within the message. This confusion often leads to more procrastination.

On the flip side, it’s quite easy to send a short reply to a short email. It doesn’t matter what you’re talking about, a shorter email will always receive a faster response.

If you want faster responses, then make it easy on the reader to respond. Ask them one question, talk about a single topic, and keep it short.

2. Write fewer emails

If you send people emails all the time, then they get used to seeing a message from you in their inbox. There is no sense of urgency associated with your message because they know that if they don’t reply… well, you’ll be sending another email soon.

Don’t take advantage of the fact that you can email anyone at anytime. Teach people to value your emails by only sending one when you have something valuable and important to say.

3. Ask for a response

It sounds simple, but many times we forget to do so.

We clearly explain the situation in our email — maybe we even provide a few action steps — but we often forget to clearly ask for a response.

As the writer of the email, the next step always seems clear to us. For the recipient, however, it might not be so obvious. In the middle of a busy day — and we’re all busy — we need to be told what to do rather than guess at it. Make the next step clear for the reader by kindly asking for the action you want.

4. Start with a deadline

Another reason for delayed responses is a lack of urgency.

As a society we have adopted a method of using deadlines to make up for our tendency to procrastinate. As a result, we often decide which tasks we are going to perform based on when certain projects are due.

When it comes to email, this means that you need to state a clear deadline or risk waiting for a response until the recipient has “free time” — which is rarely.

When you write your next email, try including a deadline in the first one or two sentences of the message.

For example,

“Hi Mark,

Below is the TPS report for this Friday’s meeting — I would love to have your thoughts by Wednesday at 1pm. …”

We’re conditioned to use deadlines. If you make it clear when you need a response by, then it’s much more likely that you’ll get the response by that date.

5. Only email one person at a time

If at all possible, never send an email to more than one person at a time. Even if it takes a few extra minutes to email everyone individually, you’ll find much better responses because of it.

The reason for this is that people push responsibility off of their own shoulders and onto the group whenever possible.If you send a message to five people, then each person always assumes that the other four will do whatever tasks are outlined in the message. The result, of course, is that nothing gets done.

If you have to message a group of people all at once, then do your best to assign tasks to specific people in the message. Otherwise, you’ll be waiting for a mystery man to step up and take action.