I am Not a Paper Cup

Most homeworkers have an obession with coffee or whatever your favourite beverag is. If you’re like me I moved through loads of mugs and cups over the years, and a corresponding number of coffee makers to boot.

But if you want to recreate the days when you commuted to work and stopped off at your favourite coffee emporium for the first cafine fix of the day, you can with this ceramic cup that is designed to look just like a take away plastic cup that all commuters are familiar with.

Nigel’s Eco Store describes this great piece of design as: ‘a reusable, double walled, thermal ceramic mug with a re-sealable silicon lid that’ll keep your coffee safe, and reduce your need for paper cups (which only end up being thrown away). Take a small step to reducing your carbon footprint, and alleviate any eco guilt. Makes a great gift too!’

As Nigel points out ‘Starbucks hands out 50,000 paper cups a day! Although their paper cups are made from recycled material, they cannot be recycled again because of the wax coating that holds the fluid in the cup. This means that 18.25 million Starbucks’ paper cups are thrown away every year and end up on UK landfills.’

So, buy one of these cups and you’re not only saving the planet, but you can poke a bit of fun as your rat race colleagues when they come around to your house.

If at the moment your home workstation is your lap or a corner of the kitchen table, the how about a workstation you can store away and get out when you need it. The Out-of-Box Workstation looks very futuristic, but certainly solves the problem of a lack of dedicated working areas. The best way of seeing this innovative solution is to watch the video from this link.

I’m sure like me you’ve worked your way through a load of keyboards over time. I think I’m currently on my fifth or sixth keyboard since I started working full-time from home. My latest is the wireless version of the Microsoft split ergonomic keyboard. Problem is the quality of the letters that are printed on each key leaves a lot to be desired as several are already rubbing off.

I guess, though, I use my keyboard for many more hours than they are design to for the average user. But I don’t want to replace the whole keyboard just because of a few missing letters.

My solution is two-fold. I have an old split Microsoft keyboard. I’m going to try and pull the keys I need off that keyboard and fit them to my current version. Failing that I think stick on letters are the easiest and most cost effective solution. Never used these before, so not sure if they are any good. I’ll let you know which solution works.

If you’re a home-based web designer, or want to send a web pages with some notes attached to it, Protonotes will make this a breeze. I’ve always liked the genius of the Post It note. I’ve also used their digital equivalent for years. But when I came across Protonotes thanks to a post on the Web Worker Daily, I thought what a fantastic idea.

Many homeworker are part of virtual teams that work on a wide variety of projects. Web design these days can be a complex collaborative affair. Protonotes enables you to attached Post It like stickies to your web pages for your colleague to see and act upon. Set-up is nice and easy once you have posted the JavaScript to your web pages. Give it ago, you’ll wonder how you ever worked without them.

I came across a very interesting feature on the Freelance UK website this week. It looked at an issue I have often thought about myself. In what circumstances would I contemplate going back to being an employee?

It an interesting idea that has come up regularly in homeworker circles. Are you now employable after so many years working for yourself? How would you stack up against other applicants for a vacancy?

Freelance UK’s research is astonishing in that it states that even with a 100% pay rise on current earnings half of those surveyed would still not give up their self employment and return to a 9-5 job.
A spokesperson for Workology that commissioned the research said: “One of the most common concerns before switching to a flexible working life is being able to secure enough regular work to match the income of full-time employment. However, potential freelancers should harbour no such worries: 62% of freelancers earn a comparable or higher income than when they worked full-time.”

So, if you’re having a really bad day, don’t worry. This is just a blip and will be more than compensated for with future work you will secure. As for your decision to turn your back on the rat race, you may be working harder, but you’re working for your benefit. With latest estimates by the Professional Contractors Group stating that 40% o the UK workforce will be freelance by 2010, you’re a pioneer that others are sure to follow.

All homeworkers know that email can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand you need it to keep in touch with clients, but on the other hand it can be a massive drain on your time.

New research has indicated that a fast response to an enquiry is now being demanded by more businesses, and what’s more, slow responses could cost £18,840 per business. It seems that businesses now demand a response to a query within 30 minutes these days. Location also seems to play a part. In Birmingham one in five now expect a response within half an hour. Other cities where the 30 minute time-bomb is becoming increasingly normal are Manchester (18%), Newcastle (18%), Cardiff (17%) and London (17%).

How fast do you get back to clients that have sent you a query? Personally I have tried to stop checking email too regularly. I used to have Outlook set-up to do a send/receive every 10 minutes. But as you can imagine, I was distracted by the desktop pop up that appears when a new email arrives. I’ve now switched this off and check for email just three times a day. This I think is plenty.

New contacts will get a response within a few hours. And if their query is really urgent, most people pick up the phone and call me. One thing, though to watch out for is messages getting stuck in your spam folder. I always scan this every day before I delete its contents just to make sure a new client hasn’t emailed me, but BT’s servers not knowing their email address has marked their message as spam. How fast do you get back to your clients?

Last year I tested a number of online word processors. One that really stood out for me was Buzzword. It’s superb Flash based interface was very seductive, but this didn’t mean that the application was all gloss and no substance. Now Adobe have moved this word processor on a stage further and combined this with their online services.

You now have the option of creating your documents online, share them with colleagues and now create PDF’s. With more applications moving online including Adobe’s Photoshop - of you haven’t tried this out yet give it a go as it’s fantastic - we are seeing our trusted apps with a Web 2.0 makeover.

With more applications moving online we may be approaching a time when we don’t need install desktop apps any longer. The link between the desktop and the webtop is blurring. For homeworkers looking to save time and money, services like acrobat.com enable us all to pick and choose the apps we need and use cost effective platforms without breaking the bank. For micro businesses or enterprises on very tight budgets, these packages mean you don’t have to sacrifice function and usability because of cost. And of course, if you want to work remotely, all your apps and associated documents are all online. All you need is access to a PC with an Internet connection.

There’s a great post over at HomeOffice Warrior that offer a great list of tips and tricks that all homeworkers can use to improve their businesses. Time management seems to be high on everyone’s list of things to improve. Take a look at the list. You might find a tip that revolutionises how you work.

How powerful if your office PC? In the not too distant past every couple of years in keeping with Moore’s Law we all dutifully upgraded our computers to enable us to run the latest versions of our favourite software, or to use the latest peripherals that needed more processing power.

Today, however, we seem to be seeing somewhat of a plataeu effect in computing power. For homeworkers a computer is essential, but do you really need a very powerful machine humming away under your desk? Many homeworkers use laptop computers as their main PC. Today, every the smallest notebook PC can be just as powerful as its desktop counterpart.

Also, micro computers are becoming even more popular. PC’s like the ASUS Eee PC 4G, the Samsung Q1 and even the HTC Shift can all be used to run a small businesses. There are also the so called small form factor computers that cram all the pocessing power of a full-sized PC into a very small box. Good examples are the Shuttle series and of course Apple’s Mac Mini.

With more applications now available online such as Google Docs, Adobe’s move to the Internet with its PDF format and online word process or Buzzword, you PC just needs to be powerful enough to connect to the Internet and have a browser installed.

Clearly if space is a premium in your home office a PC with a small footprint is a great buy, but the good news is you don’t have to compromise on power these days. With a massive range of computers to choose from, we’re all spoilt for choice, but the same criteria when choosing a PC for your business still remain. Match the PC you buy with your business’s core needs. If you need masses of computing power, or simply a notebook PC to check email, there’s a PC for you, and what’s more it won’t break the bank.

This news item on the Gainseville site caught my eye and certainly rang true with me. Working on a Sunday has certainly become the norm for me. Working for yourself you become much more flexible with your time. I use Sundays to catch up on email and write my blog entries. I’m typing this as 12.35pm on Sunday June 27th for instance.

Gone are the days when we all sat about not doing a great deal on Sundays having over indulged with Sunday lunch. With extended opening ours and a rapid development of leisure time, Sundays have become one of the busiest days of the week.

Personally I try to kick back a bit on a Sunday and do the housekeeping I need to do for my business. Locking invoices and expenses into my accounts spreadsheet is a habit I have developed this year. The practical upshot is that when I need to generate my accounts at year end, this takes less than an hour. When I first started my business and simply stuffed envelops with invoices and receipts. End of year accounts would take all day - usually a Sunday.

I certainly get the impression that my fellow homeworkers are all logged on for at least part of every Sunday. It’s difficult not to check on emails, or blogs your monitoring, but I would say that you should try and throttle back on Sundays as much as you can. Preparing stuff for the forthcoming week is also a favourite of mine, but I still make time to relax and spend time with the family.