Setting Up a Home Office. 10 Tips to Getting it Done Right the First Time
Setting up a home office can be a tremendous challenge. How do you separate your work life from your home life when they occupy the same space? Here are 10 tips to create a home office designed for maximum productivity.
1. Know yourself.
Think about your perfect working conditions. Short of a lounge chair at the edge of the ocean on a warm sunny day, what do you see? Do you have a large conference table and plenty of room to spread out? Do you have a large recliner and a laptop desk? What are your ideal working conditions? Don’t just think about comfort. What conditions do you work best in? Is there music playing? Is there a phone in your office? What is on your desk? In and out boxes? Is there a place for everything or are you more of a scattered creative type? Do you have pictures? Plants? A fountain? The key is to envision your perfect productive space, not what you think should be your perfect productive space.
2. Don’t forget wall space.
What is on the walls of your office space right now? Are they blank? Are they covered with family photos? What about inspirational prints with motivational sayings? Do you have a large writing surface on your wall or a cork board? Planning boards are fantastic if you’re a visual person. You can use a whiteboard to draft the navigation of your website or create long range plans and a timeline. Corkboards are excellent for posting notes, tasks, and ideas you don’t want to lose.
What about shelving? Use your vertical space, your wall space, to optimize your home office. Shelves are an excellent way to store items you frequently need while saving space on your desk and conserving valuable floor space. An office that feels roomy and clutter free is often much more productive than an office that feels cluttered and disorganized.
3. Let there be light.
Natural light is best for productivity and feelings of well being. However, natural light isn’t always an option. Quite often home offices are built into the center of a home or worse…the basement. Uniform ambient light is better for productivity than task lighting and it is better on your eyes. For an expensive uniform lighting set up, consider natural spectrum fluorescent bulbs. They last a long time and are good for your mood and the environment.
In addition to natural light, it is helpful to have a bit of ventilation. If you can open a window from time to time and get some fresh air, by all means do! If there are no windows available in your home office, consider air purifiers, fans or some sort of ventilation system.
4. Don’t sit at the kitchen table!
Placing yourself right in the middle of the house and all of its activity is a certain time stealer. How can you avoid distractions from chores, people, pets, and folks knocking at your door trying to sell you magazines or financial services? While the kitchen table is great because it enables you to spread out and work in a comfortable location – there are probably plenty of windows and sunlight there too – there are no doors to keep out the distractions.
5. How much memory do you think you’ll need?
The basic rule of thumb when setting up a home office is to buy as large of a computer as you can afford. You might be surprised at how quickly your memory and storage will be used up. If you don’t buy a big enough computer, you’ll end up having to buy a new one anyway. If you already have a computer and a larger capacity computer isn’t in your budget, consider an external storage drive.
6. Backup regularly.
Speaking of external storage drives…it is imperative that you back your equipment up regularly. I know that backing up takes time, sometimes it feels like it takes forever; however it is critical to the future of your business and your sanity that you back up. Stop for a moment and consider what would happen if everything on your computer suddenly vanished.
For many, it might mean the end of their business, which is why it is critical that you not only back up regularly – weekly isn’t too frequent – you will also want to make sure your backup is working. Backup and then go through the process of retrieving your information to make sure your backup is working the way it is supposed to.
7. Set up your office to function smoothly.
This means comfortable equipment, and processes that make sense for you. Is your chair comfortable? How about your keyboard and your desk positioning? The more comfortable you are in your office, the more productive you’ll be. If your wrist is hurting and your back is stiff, you’re going to work slower and chances are you’re going to be distracted.
What about the system you have set up. Is everything you use frequently within easy reach? Is your phone close by? What about your files? Take a minute and look around your home office. Is it set up optimally for you?
8. Organization and storage.
Do you have a place for everything? Storage and organization is extremely important when creating your home office. If you skip this step you’ll spend much of your time trying to find things instead of getting them done. Create a paper organization and storage system – file cabinet. Also create an effective storage system on your computer. For paper files, it is recommended that you have a file for every bank account, taxes, receipts, expenses, payables, receivables, marketing and sub folders for each marketing project.
Also consider keeping your copywriting ideas in a file. On your computer the system will work much the same way. You’ll likely have major folders for each category and sub folders contained within. For example you might have a category labeled Marketing, and sub categories labeled SEO, PPC, Direct Mail etc…
9. Do you need an address?
When you have a home address, it is tempting to have your business address be the same. However, take a moment and step back. There are distinct advantages to having a separate business address. You are able to keep your home address private. You are able to separate your work from your home legally. Having a business address looks a little more professional than 1015 Butternut Circle on your business correspondence. Additionally, having to go pick up the mail gets you out of your house on a regular basis!
10. Modems, and phones, and faxes oh my.
Do you need all of these fixtures cluttering your office? There are numerous electronic devices available now like e-fax, wireless internet, and 800 numbers that are economical and can be forwarded to your cell phone eliminating the need for a separate office phone and line.
In fact, there are automated attendants that will answer your phone for you during your off hours, send them into your ‘business’ voice mail and actually email the message to you or forward it to your personal voice mail system. All for less than $20 a month.
When it comes to working out of a home office, you make the rules. What works for the masses in terms of organization, hours, processes and so on are not necessarily what will work for you. Develop a system that works for you and stick to it. When you design a system and space that work for you, and stick to it, your productivity will increase ten fold and so will your profits.
Jeremy Gislason
http://www.articlesbase.com/home-business-articles/setting-up-a-home-office-10-tips-to-getting-it-done-right-the-first-time-688817.html
Gaining a Ferrel Kittens Trust?
My fiance and I were at work (3 shift wal-mart) the other night and we among a few others found a kitten in the personnel office. He was very frightened but did allow us to pet him. My fiance and I decided we would take him home, so one of the guys caught him and but him in a cat carrier and when our shift ended, we got a bunch of kitten stuff (hes about 5 – 6 months old) and took him to the vet before we brought him home. at the vet they checked him for a microchip and did all the needed tests gave him his vaccinations gave us a age estimate all that, he stayed fairly calm at the vet, no problems. we also have 2 dogs in out apartment. so we decided to make our bedroom the cat room. cleaned up the bedroom got his litter box and food bowls set up made sure he had plenty of water and we got him wet food and dry food. we are just trying to leave him alone right now, letting him get used to his surroundings, and the new noises from the dogs and the tv and everything. on the first day he left his carrier and stayed in the bed we got him (its one of those cubed beds that he can hide in, he eats all of the food we put down for him and is drinking plenty of water, he has already learned where the litter box is (after he pooped on our bed we put the stool in the box and he now uses that) so i would say all is going well, but he is still so afraid… he hides all the time, now he sleeps under our bed and is always.. well under the bed. i worry that he would get used to us, if he only eats when we are not around and hides when we are. so im wondering if there is anything else we can do other then feed him that may gain his trust a bit faster. we want to get him used to us and trusting of us before we introduce the dogs to him and him to the dogs which will be another loooooooong process but that is for another day. so what i need are some trust gaining tip on what we could be doing differently or what else we can be doing to gain this poor guys trust.
Iv tried playing with him a few times, we bought him several cat toys, non with cat nip though and he is very disinterested. he will watch it and then look at me like im an idiot lol. him staying under the bed does not help much either, i dont want to terrify him trying to get him out from under the bed just to attempt to play with him. tonight i stayed home from work and have been in the room with him all day, and he did leave his station under the bed once to used the litter box and once to eat a little. so i guess that is a positive cause he knows im in here and is still venturing out. i will try a cat nip toy though for sure.
Well, the honest truth is that if the cat was feral at 5 or 6 months, it might always be somewhat distrustful of humans. Usually, if a cat makes it to around 8-10 weeks without human contact, they learn human avoidance and become very difficult to socialize.
However, I’ve been around a couple of ferals that were taken after the "cutoff" age, and besides what you are already doing (which is all very good, by the way), the one thing that I’ve found works fairly well with regard to gaining their trust is to play with them.
What I’ve done (and this may sound a little silly) is to find them a toy that you know they like, and then play with it yourself with the kitten. So, what I’ve done is to get them one of those Kong balls that are made of straw with a little thing of catnip inside. I will sit on the floor and bat the ball around with my hands. Then, I will "pass" the ball to the kitten and let him play with it. This kind of social play is very important for relationship building, just as it would be important for any relationship building with any other child. If you had a son, you’d play catch with him, right? So, with the kitten, play their games on their level in order to build rapport with them.
ADD: Well, I think it will take some time. Like I said, a kitten that old who has had a lot of time to develop human avoidance behaviors is going to take a long time to convert.
So, give it time. It’s only been a couple of days. Try just putting toys in the room for it first. Then, as days, weeks, etc. go by, just observe what the kitten likes to play with. So, you might be able to tell this simply by coming in and seeing what toys have moved from one part of the room to the other while you have been gone. Then, once you have a good idea about what the cat likes, then try playing. Maybe the kitten won’t come out from under the bed. You play with the ball in your own space, then bat it under the bed for the cat to play with and leave it at that at first. It’s going to be very gradual steps. It’s not going to be an all-at-once thing.
Part of gaining trust, too, is not being to forceful. If the cat wants to hide under the bed, you have to respect that to a degree. At least for a while…
References :
When I was growing up, my parents ran a cat shelter for stray cats. We had dozens of feral cats and would often go and take them from their "nests" as young as possible to give them the best chance of taming and a new home. We generally took the kittens immediately after weaning. Their poor mothers would get very upset, but it saved a new generation of ferals, and at this young age, all of our kittens tamed perfectly and ended up in good homes. The odd few that didn’t find homes stayed with us for life, but we never had a problem with nervousness or aggression with any of them because they were so young when we took them.
Your cat is very much conditioned to it’s current cautious mindset. It has spent the most important parts of it’s development in kittenhood being distrustful of humans, and receiving no or very little human contact. Many, probably the majority of these cats will always be fearful and cautious. You may, with tremendous patience, eventually win it’s trust – this could be a long process though. I’m talking a year or more. I know how upsetting it is to want an animal to enjoy the safe, comfortable life you are offering it, only to have it too afraid to trust you. It can be very frustrating, but this cat is operating on survival instincts. It’s brain was never "wired" to include humans in it’s life, and it’s instincts are telling it you are a risk…so it hides. I would suggest keeping it right away from your dogs for a long time – until it starts to trust you. Keeping it in a room is a good idea, but sometimes this can simply mean you have a feral cat in a room in your house. ONce the cat begins to relax, I would suggest getting it used to a crate or smallish cage by keeping the cage in it’s room. ONce the cat trusts the cage and feels safe with it. if you can, close the cat inside it and cover it with a blanket. This way you can begin to move the cage in more "noisy" parts of your house so it can get used to the smells and sounds. This, again, could be a very long process. Too much too soon and you will undo any good work you did.
You’ve taken on quite a challenge. I do feel though that all animals deserve a safe place to live. Whether or not this cat ever becomes a true "pet" will make itself known with time. You may have to be happy with knowing you have a cat that just isn’t crazy about human contact. If you can tolerate this then things will be ok. He may eventually come out of his shell, but don’t expect miracles, and don’t expect that to happen too soon. Food, at this stage, is your best friend in gaining this cat’s trust, along with a peaceful, quiet environment free of loud noises or unpredictable, sudden movements. It’s not time to introduce dogs yet – it may be a while before you can do that.
Best of luck – I hope it works out.
References :
Parents ran cat shelter & dealt with lots of strays/feral cats
well for any kitten u got to pick it up occasionally all cats like being petted so pet him even if u have to crawl under the bed to do so…. eventually it will come to u for lovin…. and ur heartbeat is good trying putting the cat cat on ur chest……if it had a mommy kitten get something really soft for it…. my girlfriend got a kitten they found under a house and the mom was stray…. and it like this bed we found with like a super soft fur lineing it sucks on the bed like it might its mom kind of a comfort thing when it gets older were gonna ween it lol its still a baby but its livened up a lot
References :
sounds like your doing everything right give him time he will come round and before u know it he will be the boss of the house the dogs and u, some cats like us humans are not as confident as others, all hes been used to is fending for himself, any dogs or humans he has come into contact with before u have been a threat, however he is still young enough to quickly learn that this is new safe home. good luck.
References :
I’ve had a lot of experience with ferals in the last 5+ years and have had terrific success for the most part. Absolutely now that the kitty is in your home you need to start playing with him! Start slowly at first – you don’t want to scare him – use something like a string and move it gently around the floor. I have seen many, many cats who don’t know how to play because their life was all about survival, so you may have to teach him. Once he learns that what you are offering him is fun, you can add other kinds of toys and start to pick up the pace to get him to chase things and jump on things! He will begin to associate good/fun with you and will look forward to your time together. Get him some catnip too – most cats really respond to that.
Another thing I always do is when I feed them, I make it a point to pet them a few times – maybe for 30 seconds or so when they begin to eat – to get them used to being touched. They associate this with another good thing (food) and will begin to look forward to being pet. Again, this is something you add gradually, and eventually you can pet him without the lure of food.
Also, most cats respond quite well to "sweet talk". When you enter the room, always talk to him in a soft voice (baby-talk sounds silly, but it is soothing to them) and never raise your voice at him. When he gets used to your voice and associates it with good things, then later when something else frightens him, your voice becomes a source of safety for him, and he will come to it – you can help calm him very effectively this way.
This all can be done very successfully, but it will take A LOT of consistent, patient, loving care to get him to trust you. Don’t give up. And don’t ever force him to be around you or to play or anything else. Let him decide when to start opening up to you. But keep offering him toys and food and special attention…just understand that it will take him a while before he feels safe.
Thank you for giving him a home!
PS I think the crate is a horrible idea. Cats who feel as though they are trapped can get very dangerous to handle if they panic. He needs to know that if he is frightened (by the dogs or loud noises) that he can run and hide under the bed or jump up onto a high perch where he is out of danger. Don’t ever trap him in some cage and force him into a space where he is terrified and can’t go anywhere. He will either completely shut down or he will become aggressive and panicky.
References :
http://www.feralsforfamilies.com
http://www.kittens4adoption.com