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April 23, 2018 0 Comments

4 Easy Ways to Better Organization

Organization is one of those small things that make a big difference.  Cluttered, disorganized spaces make us less productive, and it can be stressful to constantly feel like you’re playing catch up.

A well-executed organization plan is a key to success in business and at home, and it’s worth the effort to get things to a manageable place.  Read along for some of our best, easiest ways to stay organized.

Clear your space

Start by clearing out! If you’re naturally a disorganized person, the idea of organization can be slightly overwhelming.  Simply start by clearing the clutter and items you don’t like. You can also work to remove unsightly items, such as cords and other things that can be moved out of the way.

According to NAPO and BecomingMinimalist.com, 91% of people said they would be more effective and efficient if their workspace was better organized.

So not only is this task made to make your life easier; it can improve your work!

Make it a habit

Don’t let it build up! Whether it’s papers, digital files, your desktop, your kitchen island, or anything else that’s prone to clutter, be proactive about keeping it in shape.  This isn’t to say that it has to be 100% clear all the time, but make it a habit. Take a few minutes each day to organize each space so that the next day doesn’t feel overwhelming.

Create a system

Once your general clutter is clear, you can start to systemize your organization habits.  This can even be fun! There are plenty of fun storage and organization products at stores like The Container Store, Home Goods, Target, and so on.  You can pick out the items that will look best and serve you best, while making it your own.

Not everyone organizes the same way either! This is another place where you can pick your own style.  Do you prefer digital? There are tons of apps and pieces of equipment that allow you to scan all receipts, documents, and so on, and from there, you can organize them by file. If you prefer paper organization, choose a filing schedule and method that keeps things clear in your mind.

It’s important to keep to your organization schedule as well! Maybe take 60 minutes every Friday morning, or 10 minutes per day, if that’s more your style.  Maybe Monday is 20 minutes of digital file organization, Tuesday is 20 minutes at home, and Wednesday is all of your digital clutter. Make it work for you!

Create files

As we discussed, whether you’re paper or digital is a personal choice.  Things are moving more to the digital realm, but sometimes it’s still nice to have a hard copy.

You might think you can just wing your documents in either format, but it’s never very reliable.  You don’t want things to back up, or worse yet, get lost. Create files that make sense to you, and work to keep everything in its proper place.

Even if your desktop is clean, your individual folders should also be organized.  In addition, if you keep paper files, you should have everything in its correct place, not just out of sight.

Organization doesn’t have to be a challenge! Take some time each day or week, and keep it in the forefront of your thinking.  It will make your life easier and your workload more productive!

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April 9, 2018 0 Comments

5 Tips to Avoid Work Burnout

Work burnout is a real thing! According to MayoClinic.org, it is defined as “a state of physical, emotional or mental exhaustion combined with doubts about your competence and the value of your work.”  It can cause mental, physical, and psychological stress, and there are many signs of it.

According to Forbes.com, if you’re experiencing burnout, you might have: exhaustion, lack of motivation, frustration and cynicism, cognitive problems, problems at work and home, lack of care for yourself, and more.  These are clearly issues that need to be addressed, and working to avoid burnout is the first step.

Stick to office hours

Since we have our phones and computers constantly at our fingertips, it can be tempting to answer emails and requests at all hours.  While this is possible, it shouldn’t be the case most of the time! Sure, there might be a late night every once in a while, but it should be the exception – not the rule.  Make time for yourself and stick to your office hours.

You can set office hours by figuring out how much time it takes you to do your work on a daily basis, and then you should only be emailing, texting, and answering calls for work during this time. Work will only sleep if you let it, so make a boundary here to keep your own sanity.

Make time for fun

Fun is important! It’s crucial to have things to look forward to, and it’s up to you to make those plans sometimes. Set up social events with friends or family, schedule a fun night with girlfriends, or make a standing walking date with a local mom who also works from home.

When you’re scheduling fun into your everyday life (not just vacations!), you can come back to work refreshed.  Bonus points if your “fun” activities include relaxation, such as a spa treatment, yoga class, or meditation group.

Say no

We get it – it’s hard to say no.  We want to do it all and we don’t want to miss out on anything.  While saying “no” can be difficult in the moment, it’s truly important to keep space in your life for the things you want to do, as well as space for simple rest.  We are all very “busy” these days, which makes us productive, but much more prone to burnout.

Say “no” when you can, and don’t feel guilty about it.  There are plenty of other opportunities to say “yes,” and it’s important to be discerning about where your time and energy goes.

Take a step back

Vacations are another way to put something to look forward to into your life! But while a full blown vacation isn’t always a possibility, taking breaks is equally important.

Schedule your breaks like you would schedule anything else in your day.  Take 10 minutes for a walk in the late morning, a 10 minute sweeping break in early afternoon, and 30 minutes to pick up your kids in the late afternoon.  Breaking up your day can make work feel more refreshing when you come back. Just stepping away for a bit – whether 5 minutes or 1 week – can really make a difference in your attitude.

Take a tech break

We already discussed that having all of this technology in our faces all day can be a challenge.  We’re productive, but are we happy? Or are we burning out? It’s not always possible to shut off your phone or computer, but you can put it down for a few hours in the evening.

When you break from technology, you’re breaking from seeing things that are work related. This gives your brain a chance to disconnect from the phone and internet, making it easier to connect in the morning.  You might even find that you come back much more eager to work when you haven’t spent your evening staring at a screen too!

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April 2, 2018 0 Comments

3 Social Life Tips for Work From Home Parents

Working from home provides more flexibility and time with family and friends, but it can also be isolating if you’re not careful.

When work is home and home is work, you can easily fall into the habit of rarely leaving the house, or rarely being social.  If you’re a parent, the issue can be compounded by a lack of time. Although it can be difficult, making time to be social is a very important component in your quality of life.  Read along for some tips to stay social as a work from home parent!

Involve the kids

Not all social events have to be kid-free! Especially if your kids are very, very young or a bit older, this can be a great option.  You can set up fun play dates for your kids while you and your friend(s) grab a cup of coffee or take a walk.

Set up an afternoon in the park while the kids play on the playground and enjoy time chatting with the other moms.

Make it a date

Create a standing date! Set up weekly or monthly time with girlfriends or a group, and make it non-negotiable.  A social life can truly make the difference between happiness and feeling isolated and lonely, so it needs to be a priority.

Your spouse, whether they work in a traditional office or not, will also need some time to socialize.  If you watch the kids on Monday night, maybe they can do the same on Thursday evening. It’s important to trade off so you’re both doing things that bring you happiness and socialization.

Additionally, social events don’t need to be all day.  You can take a few hours to attend a happy hour with a friend, walk a few loops around the block while you chat, or simply meet in a park for an hour.  The goal is to socialize on a consistent basis; it doesn’t need to be extensive or expensive.

Create your own group

If you don’t have many friends or aren’t finding the right groups in your area, create your own! Sites such as Meetup.com allow you to create a custom group.  You might set one up based on a certain age group, hobby or common interest, or make it for moms only.

When you create your group, you get the added benefit of choosing the activities you love to do.  You’ll meet like-minded people who likely share a similar lifestyle and enjoy doing the same things.

Being social as a work from home parent may take a little bit of work, but once you create a schedule that works for you and your family, it can become something you truly look forward to.  Create the social experiences that interest you and work for you and your family!

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March 26, 2018 0 Comments

HireMyMom Success Story: Whitney Shutt

What’s your success story with HireMyMom.com?

I am a bit of a rare situation, I was at a full time job when I got pregnant and wanted to stay home with my son so I became a member of Hiremymom.com in May/June of 2015 and it only took me about a week or two to land my first interview and was hired on at the company that I still work for today (going on 2.5 years) in August of that same year.

What’s your educational and experiential background?

I have my bachelors in Corporate Communication and have about 1 years worth of experience in a non-profit organization and 2.5 years of experience if business development, web organization, ghostwriting, transcription, and other various virtual assistant tasks.

What is your top tip (or tips) for landing a gig on HireMyMom.com?

Be open to anything, even time zones. I work on pacific coast time, but live in central. If you are willing to put in the work and be flexible then you should more often than not find exactly what you are looking for.

What’s your favorite thing about HireMyMom.com?

The ability to have a website where the jobs have been vetted. I know I can go to this website and know that I won’t get scammed and that everything that I see listed are honest employers looking for employees.

What’s one fun fact about you?

I love to read when my husband takes over toddler time 🙂

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February 5, 2018 0 Comments

3 Ways to Set Expectations in a Home Based Career

Working from home affords a lot of flexibility and often improves quality of life, but it brings into focus the question of work life balance.  If you’re always in your “office,” does work ever stop?

One way to ensure that working from home is, in fact, working from home, it’s important to set expectations – and boundaries. You can still be there for friends and family on a more flexible basis while still having time to complete your tasks.

Set office hours and a schedule

Even though you aren’t going to an office, it’s still important to have fairly consistent office hours.  Not only does this set an expectation for friends and family, it keeps you on a schedule.  We typically get more done when we’re on a daily schedule, so it’s a great method for productivity.

Just because you set office hours doesn’t mean they have to be 9 AM to 5 PM.  If it works better for your family to start earlier or later, go for it.  It might be helpful to carve out an hour or two for kids’ obligations, car pool, or anything else that you typically need to get done.

Create a family calendar and fill it in.  You can create a schedule around this, giving yourself time off, extra days of work, and so on.

Have a conversation

If you work from home, you might find that more of the house work and kid responsibilities are your job. This can be a great benefit of working from home, but it can also become overwhelming.

If you feel that the home obligations are out of balance, or you aren’t able to complete your work, it’s time to have a conversation.  Delegate some tasks to a babysitter or family member, and simply make it known that you’re only available at certain times.

Make it a real job

Working from home is still working, and it should be treated as such.  Create an office space that you enjoy, keep housework to breaks only, and work as you would in a traditional office.

The benefits of working from home include flexibility and comfort, but it’s easier to take it seriously and work successfully as an independent employee when you work in a more traditional way.  When you, as well as others, see your job as more “real,” the balance of work and the boundaries of time are more likely to be adhered to.

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January 15, 2018 0 Comments

5 Time Tracking Options for Virtual Professionals

When you work remotely or hire virtual professionals, you need a reliable way to track hours. Small businesses want to see how their virtual contractors or off-site employees are spending their time.  And contractors need a professional and reliable way to track their hours and bill their clients.

We’ve complied a list of some of the most popular time-tracking websites below. Many of these tools also integrate with other team and client management software which can be very helpful.

Toggl

Toggl makes it easy for you.  “Logging time with Toggl is as easy as it can possibly be. Just click a button to start the timer, and stop it once you’re done with your tasks. Simple as that, on any device.”

Toggl also allows you to log time anywhere on the web, so you don’t have to login to Toggl every time.  You can also discover what’s taking up your time via their visual reports option, so you’re able to visually see how long each task takes, as well as the time spent by your team members.

Pricing begins at $9.00 per month for the Starter level, and goes up to $49.00 per month for larger organizations and those who want additional features.

Harvest

Not only can you track your own time on Harvest, but you can see where your team’s time is going as well.  “Harvest collates this raw timesheet data into a visual summary of where your team’s time is going,” according to their website.

You’re also encouraged to keep track of Projects, so things never slip through the cracks.  According to their features, you can “Keep your projects on track (and make sure your business is going strong) with answers to key questions, courtesy of intuitive visual reports pulled right from your timesheets.”

Pricing is free for one person and 2 projects, and goes up to $12.00 per person, per month if you purchase for a team.

Timely

Timely offers great features that allow you to “Let your timesheet create itself. All you need to do is to confirm.”

The site allows you to create an automatic timeline based on tasks, from your calendar, which you’ve completed in an easy to see and use format.  This was created because “People forget what they worked on, and they don’t want to spend time tracking time. So they avoid it, and you have to chase them down. That’s where Memory comes in: A radical new way to track time,” according to the Timely website.

Pricing begins at $7.00 per month and goes up to $59.00 per month for larger teams and more in depth features.

MyHours

MyHours allows you to “Start or stop timer with a single click, switch timings between tasks in seconds or, just as important, pause for a coffee break.”

MyHours also has the capability to set variable hourly rates, report work to your clients in style and detail, and do this via PDF and Excel reports.  They also offer a graphic breakdown of your work, so you’re able to see how your time is spent, how tasks are going, and what your team members are up to.

Pricing begins for free, and goes to $6.00 per user, per month for more capabilities, such as budgeting, billing, additional team members, and more.

Paydirt

Paydirt offers Smart Time Tracking, which means you can “Use the built in tracker to start a timer for any client in one click. Tracking time is a pain, but Paydirt takes the sting out,” according to their website.

It also integrates with Basecamp, Trello, Redbooth, Google Chrome and Zapier. Pricing begins at $8.00 per month for a single user, and up to $149.00 per month for a large agency of 20 team members.  “Smart Reminders” allow you to “determine who you’re working for automatically, and adds a link to start a timer right there on the page.”  It’s a very simplified option that keeps you on task.

 

 

 

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January 8, 2018 0 Comments

HireMyMom Employer Success Story: Ralph Massetti

www.thefranchisebuilders.com

Tell us a little about your business and how you got started.

We began 17 years ago as a franchise industry technology company. Then, about 11 years ago began offering a suite of complete franchise development and consulting services to existing and aspiring franchisors.

What advice do you have for entrepreneurs and home business owners?

Control costs, grow strategically and hire the best talent you can afford.

What is your top tip for hiring great talent? And when should one consider outsourcing or hiring additional help?

We like to outsource when we are developing new positions, and either hire the early performers direct, or learn the scope of the position(s) before making permanent offerings and job descriptions.

What’s your favorite thing about HireMyMom.com?

The quality of the respondents and the flexibility of the workforce.

What’s one fun fact about you?

I’m a passionate animal rights advocate and often refer to myself as “the fattest Vegan you will ever meet”, as I still love fun and food, despite my no longer eating the animals I cherish.

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January 2, 2018 0 Comments

3 Ways to Secure Work From Home Jobs

Working from home is a noble goal for many moms, parents and people who are seeking more flexibility in their lives.

Between long commutes, wasted time in an office, and the lack of freedom to attend important things, it’s no wonder that more and more people are looking for a job that gives them something more.  As a work from home job site, we have some tips and advice to secure a work from home job that will work for you and your family.

Tune into the application process

You can’t get a job if you’re never applying! Just like applying for a traditional office job, you have to apply often, thoroughly, and carefully.

Businesses seeking home based employees are no longer just scammy companies who will take anyone; they’re seeking highly qualified, experienced, and professional workers.

Do your best to apply to as many jobs as possible that truly fit your skill set.  Don’t waste your time with the rest! It’s not ideal to apply for positions just to work from home.  Eventually, this will not be fulfilling.  Find the good ones and go to town with making those applications the absolute best you can.

Use the right sites

As you’ve probably noticed, there are tons of job search sites out there.  Some of these traditional sites will even feature work from home jobs once in a while, and you can find a job there!

While this is true, it’s like finding a needle in a haystack.  Even if you see work from home jobs, they’re often scams, sales-only jobs, or other questionable positions that aren’t legitimate for home based work.

Sites like HireMyMom.com are created for the sole purpose of work from home jobs.  Utilize these sites as your first points of searching, and you’ll have far more luck.  It’s as if everyone rounded up the “legitimate” jobs from those other sites and put them into one place!  Use the right resources, and the right job will likely come to you.

Watch your presence

Make sure your materials and online presence are top notch. Resumes are just as important online as offline!  Between your online resume, cover letter, and other application materials, make sure that these are in good shape online.  We often submit these materials to several application sites, which can sometimes be searched via Google.

Additionally, it’s important to watch your social media presence.  This is true for every job, but especially work from home jobs.  You employers are likely to be a bit more tech savvy, and it’s easy for them to check you out.  These days, many employers even ask for your social media URLs in the job application itself!

Do your best to keep things professional, and present yourself as if your employer is watching.

Working from home is a great way to do more in life while still earning an income.  It’s not as simple as logging into a basic job search site and pressing a few buttons, but with the right tools, sites, and attitude, you can find a job that fits you and your family’s lifestyle.

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November 13, 2017 0 Comments

5 Tips for Holiday Organization

The holidays are almost here! It’s the best time of the year, but it can also be the least organized. Between family, friends, extra events, parties, gifts, and so much more, it’s easy to get overwhelmed.

To avoid overwhelm and stay present in this holiday season, read along for some best tips for holiday organization.

Start early

Thanksgiving is almost here, but there’s still plenty of time before Christmas and the New Year! Avoid a lot of stress, panic, and lack of ideas by beginning as early as possible.

If you have a lot of gifts to buy, it can even be helpful to create a separate bookmark folder on your computer to compile gift ideas.  Simply copy down the link, take a screenshot, or store the item in your bookmarks folder with the name of the recipient.  Then, when it’s time to buy, you have some great ideas ready to go.

Create a work schedule

Work doesn’t go away during the holiday season.  If you know you’re going to have a particularly busy holiday, start working ahead as soon as possible.  Complete a few items per day that will go towards days you wish to take off or work less.

Holidays are special, and it’s important to spend time with your friends and family as everyone has more time off from work.  Put in the time, effort, and work ahead of time now so you can fully enjoy those moments later.  This way, you aren’t scrambling to finish work at the last minute, or worse yet, missing those fun, special times with those you love.

Less stuff

A lot of “stuff” can cause chaos in the home.  Make this the year of less “stuff!” No, it doesn’t mean you have to forego gifts, but can you do them differently.  Cut down on the number of things and up the value; it’s always preferable to focus on quality over quantity anyway.

For your kids, a useful practice can be to donate old items that are no longer used.  Have them select a few items to donate or throw away before the season of gifts arrives.  It’s not about prying away their favorite items that are truly used, but to make room for the new.  A home with less “stuff” is typically much less chaotic and more organized.

More experiences

On the topic of giving less “stuff,” comes experiences.  Experiences are wonderful gifts that give the gift of time, thought, and something unexpected.

Whether it’s a spa day, outdoor activity, escape room certificate, unique dinner out certificate, and so on, these are all items that can be experienced.  Experiences have the added benefit of your time!

Buy a gift card for two massages and treat your mom to a spa day.  If your kids love the water, treat them to a day at an indoor water park this winter.  The immediate gratification may not be there, but once the experience is underway, it’s typically the most memorable and most appreciated type of gift.

Other experiences come from participating in activities during the holiday season.  There’s so much cool stuff that goes on this time of year! Adventure out of your comfort zone, grab a friend or family member, and head out to enjoy some of the fun things that this time of year brings.

Organize the major days

Thanksgiving Day, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year’s Eve, Hanukkah – just to name a few! There are so many big days during the holiday season.  Start a list or a spreadsheet of each holiday you intend to celebrate in a big way and begin your checklist.

Whether it’s meals, cooking schedules, gift to dos, or things to pick up, include it all! Having your items in one central location like Dropbox or Google Docs can make collaborating and sharing among family and friends even easier too.

Eliminate the overwhelm this year! Start early, focus on less “stuff” and more experiences, and take the time to organize the big days.  You’ll be glad you planned ahead a bit when you’re able to enjoy more quality time with those you love!

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