Working from home is a challenge. As I’ve said a few times before, it takes 10x the discipline of a regular work setup. The systematic grind of traditional employment enables a person to conform to a schedule and a way to psychologically understand the delineations between work and home. These delineations, these boundaries enable a person to WORK at work, and REST at home. If he breaches that by carrying work home, then it’s his own lack of boundaries that will set him on the way to burnout.

In the past six years of my work-from-home working life, one major thing I’ve struggled with has been how to discipline myself, given the fact that I do not have the benefit of these external signposts for boundaries. The space where I live is also the space where I work.

And though I crave structure because of this struggle, I really could not seem to function in traditional employment.

Recently, the need for structure resurfaced. In my previous room, also a studio-type in a pension house, everything was so snug-fitting, to put it nicely: my “office space,” my tiny “kitchen,” my bed, all felt smooshed together. I needed to get my bed out of the way before I can work in a comfortable manner.

At first, I thought that I needed to have another room, another space, in which to work. But the recent move I’ve had, from the pension house where I lived, to this dormitel where I now reside, did not give me the luxury of another room. While I moved to a more spacious place which came with a roomier kitchen, albeit outside my room (I preferred having everything within the room/unit), I still have not been able to acquire a space with another room to work from.

The Two-Bedroom Place I had to say "no" to.

One of the options I had, prior to moving in to where I currently live, was a two-bedroom apartment. But the monthly rent was a thousand pesos more than what would be sane for me to pay for. So I chose this one, a studio-type concession to that other option.

This space is a lot better than the snug-fitting pension house room: whenever I get my sofabed out of the way, I can work unencumbered from my office tables.

My "Office" Nook

My Personal/Study Area

Plus, the “ritual” of getting my sofabed out of the way was a form of structure, a rhythm that signals that I’m about to start my day and about to work.

The Sofabed Nearly Takes Up The Whole Room

Though, folded, it's a lot more spacious then. <3

Given a bigger space to live in, and a new rhythm to adjust to, I still had to address another problem: adjusting to a schedule. The change of venue allowed me to find a new rhythm, because it distanced me from my set ways. So I thought I could experiment about working in the daytime, while sleeping at night.

My parents always hemmed and hawed about how I should be living normal hours: working during the day, sleeping at night. There were days when I could almost manage that, but I would always crave for the dead and quiet of night. I craved for not only the silence from the sounds of people and vehicles going about their business, but I also craved for visual “silence”: “silence” from too much light from an all-encompassing sunlight.

Too Sunny AND Pretty Outside.

I’m a very noise-sensitive person, so any form of noise: too much stimuli for whichever of the five human senses, distracts me from my tasks.

And so, I’ve figured out that I need the dark in order to focus on my work.

Though, because of some days that I’ve successfully worked during the day, there was a point where I thought I could break my body to work in the daytime. But even given the new context of a new living space, and a beautiful view from where I work, alas and alack, work is just easier to deal with, given a darker world with less stimuli to be distracted with. The dark offers focus and less noise from the outside world, visual and auditory. Thus, I can write or manage websites a lot easier.

It also helped me find my rhythm once more when I rediscovered the Pomodoro Technique. This is a system of working wherein you chunk your working time and attempt to sticking at your task until the time is up, then taking a break, also with a given time.

Though the experts recommend a 25:5 proportion — 25 minutes of work to 5 minutes of a break, I find that I am happier and more compliant with a 10:10 proportion. I bore easily, so the task that I need to get to has to be wrapped up in a shorter time, and the breaks I take have to be given a longer moment. The proportion of 10:10 made me happier.

The bottom line is that, there are elements to replicating the boundaries, structure and system of a regular job. And I find that these are the elements that helped me:

1. A semblance of structure, or a “ritual.” Folding up my sofabed, having coffee and a moment to myself, doing the dishes before I worked, these things make for a before-work ritual. I find that finishing cooking all the meals I need for the day, finishing the dishes, make for giving me the psychological signals to ready me for work.

2. A chosen schedule for the day. While I do not adhere to an hour-based or rigid schedule, I have this thing wherein I churn out a time-dependent article in the afternoon, then take a long break and do my chores, then resume work in the evening, or even past midnight. I’ve finally come to terms that sleeping in the mornings is truly best for me, especially since my most-hated hours of the day are actually 6AM to 10AM. I don’t know why, but since I was a kid, I’ve hated those hours. So I figure those are the hours when I should sleep, since I disliked them so much.

3. A way to divide your working hours. When given an 8-hour work shift, 9, if you include the 1-hour break, most employees are itching to go home around three hours before the end of the shift. This is because the time hasn’t been budgeted, and possibly, intense work has been done throughout the first hours, thus, the exhaustion sets in during the last hours. Time-management tricks like the Pomodoro Technique help you administer the whole chunk of 8 hours.

I find, though, that personally, I prefer the 10:10 ratio because I want more minutes to play, while I’d like shorter minutes to work.

On the whole, it’s really your game to play, your work life to manage. I find that these methods work best for me. On my 6th year of working from home, I should have had it all figured it out already, right? But I find that this thing is truly a work in progress. But at this point, these are my three cornerstones to my most efficient best at work from home time management.

Life is good. <3

Here’s to you finding YOUR best work rhythm!

***

Photo Credits: Work From Home Advices

My current workspace. <3

One of the things that a virtual assistant must have is a comfortable, organized, dedicated office space where he or she can work peacefully in. Unlike those who work in offices, we don’t have corporate allotments for tables, chairs, computers, airconditioning, and the like. We have to provide all the comforts we would like, on our own.

Thus, it is the virtual worker’s duty to create a space he or she can comfortably work in.

I used to work here. This was in Boracay, in front of English Bakery. The company has since moved.

There was a time when I’ve tried working as an employee in a company with a physical office, and I got a seat which offered a great view. Irony of ironies: distraction galore.

In my home office, I once tried putting my work table in front of a window with a view. Same as what I experienced in the office as an employee, I ended up staring at the beauty of the world outside more often than would keep me productive. Then I tried arranging my work table in front of a wall.

Awesomesauce. There I found productivity utopia. Well, not exactly. But I can focus more, thanks to facing a boring wall. So much for being calmed by a beautiful view.

I preferred my previous dorm’s setup, the one in Boracay. I am only so sad that at the time, I had no camera to capture the way I worked and lived. My work table was right before the door, in a space that fit my 24″ by 42″ table to the inch, facing a wall and the aircon. Then, my study table was right beside my bed, where I could hang out as soon as I woke up or right before I went to bed, making sure I had my Quiet Time.

My Quiet Time/Bible Study Table

Nowadays, having the Study Table somewhere a little too far from the bed (okay, it’s not too far, but it’s definitely not beside where I roll out my mattresses; it’s my work table that’s beside my sleeping area) makes me somewhat lazy to do my Quiet Time regularly. But as I learned, spending time to study the Word and talk with the Lord is a discipline you have to create and move into as a habit. So spurring myself to do exactly that is something I will have to remind myself to do, on a daily basis. It helps when there’s order and when there are systems in your life in place. That way, life is lived like clockwork.

So back to working and creating a good work area. In creating mine, I thought about the way I worked. I usually prefer a cozy space, so I really take up only a small space to work in, but a bigger space is needed for my other things. Especially when I need to crunch numbers or plan, I need an area where I can work on whiteboards, calculators and other tools aside from my laptop.

One great thing about having a long table is that you can also house two laptops or two monitors on there. But even if I add a rig, I think I’ll be happy keeping the space as a place for my mess to rest on.

Space for my mess to rest on. :p

Also, I tend to have my coffee while I work, so I need the space to set my mugs on.

Work + Coffee :p

I would want to do more with my space. I want to add more white boards, a corkboard for reminders, and more things up on my walls. But at the moment, the way I’ve set up my space is perfect for me. As perfect as it can get on this side of heaven.

Here’s a how-to of setting up a virtual worker office space.

Maybe it’s because I believe that each person deserves a new lease in life, as well as I know that I, too, have had my faults as a worker.

Today, however, I came across a post in a freelancer marketplace that made me realize how fortunate I am as a freelancer. Let me show you the screencaps of what I saw before I say why it made me feel fortunate:

Click pictures to see text in full.

Although there are a couple of other messages beneath the last one, those were already off-topic and no longer relevant to this discussion.

Anyway, I was saying that in my career as a freelancer and online worker (since 2006!) I have yet to encounter people who only ask for samples, only to reject their applicants. Yes, I’ve had a couple of incidents where I wasn’t paid for six whole months (same perpetrator) and when I did get paid the second time, I only got partial payment, but never, never did I encounter these sample/freebie freeloader fake clients through first-hand experience.

That’s what keeps me from lurking in freelancer marketplaces. It’s really a bigger gamble, as opposed to finding a great client or several and staying with them through thick and thin.

For those who are starting out in the industry, though, a good, safer place to start would be Odesk. The systems are better, and there’s more protective measures for both freelancers and clients. The payment methods are also more convenient, as Odesk has its own debit card by Payoneer. So far, it’s among the best freelancer platforms out there. The only other website that can possibly rival its security and reliability is Elance.

So the point here is, be wary about the jobs you apply to. If they ask for too many samples, especially samples of a very specific and suspiciously niche-y nature (as in it already looks like the project itself), then this is already a clue that you’re probably applying for a scam.

If you’re really the type who plays it safe, maybe it’s better to look for clients on job boards, as individuals and small companies tend to post there as opposed to marketplaces.

Good luck in all that you do!

My Two Trusty Planners

In this day and age of the ubiquitous GTD/Todo List/Task Managers, you’d wonder why you’d still choose to have a paper planner. Having used a Blackberry’s awesome native Calendar, among its other task managers, then using Android’s amazing To-Do Apps, it’s probably strange why I still have a penchant for paper planners and schedulers.

This is how I use my planners. The white-outed portions are those tasks that I've finished but blotted out so I can reuse the blocks. Haha. Too much of a maximizer. :p

Here are the reasons why I still keep these:

• When I need to color code targets and then write them on the fly.
• When I don’t think that a computer-based app is intuitive enough.
• When I’m so confused and overwhelmed that I need to sort out my tasks on whiteboard or paper.
• When I need something more reliable than a phone that could go lowbatt or otherwise conk out.
• When I shouldn’t be checking my phone in the area, especially when it’s rude, like in a meeting or in church.

A paper planner is definitely more respectable than a phone when you check it in meetings. Unlike tapping or clicking away on your phone, you won’t offend people that you’re not paying attention. Well, not much. If you can do it surreptitiously, then plus points for you. Also, there will be no annoying/offending ring tones to deal with in case a text message or a call comes in while you check your day’s to-do’s. Just remember to keep the phone in your bag silent, as well.

I bought my adorable pink planner in SM City Iloilo, for around Php 150 to Php 280. I’m just not sure now, since it was months ago, but it was at that price range. I saw it, saw its date-less weekly blocks and lines, and I knew it was the planner for me.

The undated entries were perfect because I didn’t want to render the pages useless in case I don’t use them up. There also was an address book with the planner, which I gave away. Instead, I used the planner’s back pocket to hold receipts and other documents. It also comes with to bookmarking ribbons: one of which I bookmark “Sticky” entries (like task or weekly paradigms I use in the hope of achieving some consistency), and the other I use for marking the current week. Pretty convenient, these simple features.

There’s also a regular notebook-style area for which you can jot down longer notes, possibly specifications of tasks for the week ahead.

June 2011 System -- When I still had time to create neat little boxes for my color-coded article tags.

July 2011 System -- When I no longer had the luxury of time to make my system more detailed or organized.

As for my calendar-type planner, I got it from Philippine Christian Bookstore/PCBS SM City Iloilo, for only Php 25. It’s nice and compact. I found this most useful in planning posts that I used to cram and dump at the end of the month. Today, since I need to shape up, I may still use this personal system, but now to plan posts ahead. Neat, huh?

All in all, there are days when I prefer the software GTD tools. But on some days, nothing beats the oldskool.

The Pomodoro Technique from the Official Website

I’ve always had a problem with procrastination. I’ve never learned much in the way of study habits, plus, I came from a school where procrastination is the favorite vice of its students. No matter that it’s the best school in the country.

But of late, I’ve found out that it’s possibly one of the most destructive vices I’ve ever taken up. It’s plagued me well into my 5-year career as an online worker. In fact, it must be the toughest thing to beat, as an online worker.

But there came a blessing when I found the 30/30 Work Cycle by Chetan Surpur. I realized that I can ACTUALLY enjoy a work shift. However, I found one flaw: the breaks were far too generous, and an 8-hour shift goes down the drain easily.

Then I discovered the Pomodoro Technique, as I found it on a Lifehack website. It is seriously a charm. I still had trouble when I tried to make a go of working at an 8-hour-shift job, but I realized that having an 8-hour job and two other clients is not a good thing. But that’s another story.

For two weeks that I’ve tried to make a good go of the Pomodoro Technique (Lifehacker version), I’ve found that it keeps me going at my job, and work is a lot less taxing today than it was before. Kinda gives me the confidence to think about taking on Odesk or other options at gaining new clients.

Either way, this lifehack has made my work life awesome. Thank you, Pomodoro. <3

There are authors and there are writers. An author has something to say that needs to be said, but they may need writers to help them say it. They only write on the subject they are passionate about. A writer, on the other hand, can write about any topic. He or she enjoys the technical skill of communicating through the written word. -Os Hillman, The Upside of Adversity

And I hope I could fulfill this soon:

Great words to live by; gives me a “second wind” whenever I feel low.

One of the things that almost always led to my disengagement with a client or five is that I had taken on too many responsibilities. I found me too many things to want, and the needs pile up on top of them. So I try to find money to fill my needs and wants.

One thing that proved disastrous however was that I was not able to manage my time between clients. These points in my life always ended up in a meltdown.

Funny, however, that three of my clients whom I had disengaged with ended up either giving me ideas to form my own outsourcing company, or ended up making an outsourcing company for themselves:

• I found a former client from Oz so obnoxious that I wanted to compete with him and set up my own outsourcing company.
• A former client from the West Coast of the US got so fired up with her experience with outsourcing that SHE put up her own outsourcing ventures.
• A client from the East Coast of the US, as I let him know that I could work with his company no longer, suggested that I get into outsourcing. By now, I’ve realized that my initial drive to become an outsourcing mogul myself was borne out of anger, so all thoughts of outsourcing are out the window. I politely declined. However, I realized that it’s a pretty good topic to write about.

One thing that was common among all of these three clients is that we’ve learned that we cannot work together. On the other hand, it was funny that one angered me so much I wanted to compete with him, the other was so inspired by her experienced that she got into it, and the last suggested that *I* would get into it.

Personally, I would rather streamline. Outsourcing is NOT my calling. Rather, I should focus what I was born for: writing and provoking people. LOL.

That’s another thing altogether. Streamlining. Stay tuned for more!

• I just started again with working from home. Well, I’m around 6 months into it once more, but this has been the longest time I’ve worked for one single client, and I have no intention of disengaging. I am actually hoping I can retire still working for her.
• I blunder. And make the worst mistakes in a big way. But I think I have gotten to a point in the way that I handle myself with my career that there is better consistency now.
• The things I share on this blog are all about the mistakes I made, and how I realized I should correct them. I am sharing this with you so that you won’t make the same mistakes I did.

That being said, let’s work on the topic at hand: Career Excellence. In my Scribbles and Dribbles blog, I mentioned about how hard it is to actually find great people to work with you. And I have experienced this first-hand.

I’ve tried working on a personal venture with filling client requests for people to work with them. It was easy money at first. But as they fine-tuned what they needed in the people they asked me to refer to them, I realized that the field was getting narrower by the day. Great workers are apparently hard to find, and it’s nearly brain surgery to get the best to work with you.

One reason why this is the case is that the “top dawgs” have been hired by the top companies also. Talent is something you must be able to pay for, and if they’re worth it, yes, some big-shot company must have the best of the best by now.

One thing I can say from this experience of the dearth of talent is that if you’re in the shoes of the companies needing talent, better be ready to pay top dollar for top dawgs. But if you’re the jobhunting talent, here is what you should do:

• Refine your skills. Just because you’re good in what you do, it doesn’t mean you’re good enough. If you want to compete with the other dawgs in your field, you have to be Top Dawg. Nothing less.
• Refine your character. You may have the skills, you may have the drive, but do you have character? The people who make it to the top are easy to work with, humble enough to accept mistakes and keep on growing and improving, and they certainly do not flout company rules. If you’ve been kicked off of another company for viewing social networking websites, then don’t expect your recruiter to be able to put in a good word for you. Especially not if she’s your friend and knows you very well. Good friends don’t coddle. They rebuke.
• Network. While you may have the skills and the character but you don’t know how to network or hustle for a good job, you won’t get anywhere. Unless you’re already stellar in terms of skills, you may have to hustle a little for a job you want.

Knowing these three things won’t count unless you put them to action. Go and do so! And when you do, you’ll shine like a diamond among the rough, and would cause clients to want to keep you.

I’m not about to give you a fully coherent post. I just had a stretch of flu, then just got well using herbal options, and sometime between now and yesterday, I met a college classmate who succeeded far more than I did, in my so-called field of expertise: working online/working from home. On top of that, he actually has a “9 to 5″ job. Well, more like 10 to 6. He works as a telemarketer for a local call center. And yet, he can still work online from about 8 AM to 2 PM. WOWZA.

I was here doing the online beat while he and the rest of my college class were busy whooping it up and having fun. And yet, he seems to have run circles around me, the “veteran.”

So what did he have and I didn’t? FOCUS. And DISCIPLINE. And apparently, the ability to delay gratification.

He let me know that he:

• Never plays on Facebook during weekdays
• Doesn’t go out and have fun with his friends during weekdays
• Schedules all his fun during weekends
• Limits his time to unwind during weekdays.

HUH. Unlike me, whose biggest time-wasters include Plurk and online games, he opted to press down his time for work instead.

Maybe I should take it from the “newbie,” and get my game right, finally.