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10 Great At-Home Careers

June 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

How many times have you thought about starting a business, expanding your current business or starting a second business? The question isn’t whether you’re ready to work for yourself, but what type of business you should start.

Whether you have an eye for fashion, a knack for organizing, or enjoy shopping (with other people’s money), there’s a business out there for you. These ten businesses should spark your creative juices and help you discover skills you may not realize you have. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Balancing home/office Life, Working at home, Working with clients

It’s Not What You Say…It’s How You Say It

June 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I’m trying to settle a disagreement between two of my friends. One is remodeling her home and the other is an architect. I convinced my remodeling friend to hire the architect to help her create the perfect plans.

I thought they’d work well together.

I was wrong.

Relationships aren’t always as they seem

Last week I sent my remodeling friend an e-mail to ask her how things were going with the architect. She sent me a one-page e-mail describing everything that had gone wrong with the project. She couldn’t understand why I would have a friend as nasty and unprofessional as my architect friend. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Working with clients Tagged With: , , ,

Bare Essentials: File These Under Accessories

June 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A whale of a holder

When you think of cute animals, you may not think of a whale, but when it’s the size of a pencil holder and is a pencil holder, it’s hard not to say, “ahhhh.” This handcrafted holder, made from white pine, beech or redwood, holds pencils and paper in the top and back and can grip something in its mouth, too.

Each Wood Whale is signed, numbered and “packed for migration.”

Fixing the filing blues


There’s nothing exciting about filing, but that doesn’t mean that your file cabinet has to be blah. This powder coated cabinet in a beautiful blue and cool green can brighten any home office. It has one letter-legal file drawer and two storage drawers (dog not included).

Filed Under: Home office products Tagged With: , ,

Why Can’t You Understand That I’m Working?

June 21, 2011 By 7 Comments

My friends fall into two categories: the ones who understand I work every day and those who don’t understand why I can’t drop everything and get together for lunch or coffee. I love to spend time with all of my friends, but lately I’ve noticed that I stay in touch with my working friends more often than with my non-working friends.

A few differences

One group of friends isn’t nicer, smarter or more pleasant to be around than the other.  There are, however, a few differences between them.

First of all, my working friends are more understanding and take my business seriously.I never hear them say, “it’s your own business, so why don’t you take the day off?” or “you’re always too busy.”

Another difference is that my working friends and I e-mail each other more often than we talk on the phone. They don’t have time for many personal calls during the day either. Most of all, they understand that when you work from home, especially for yourself, every minute counts. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Balancing home/office Life, Working at home Tagged With: , ,

The Balancing Act

June 15, 2011 By 5 Comments

Guest post by Bernice Wood

Life is so busy today, and it can be even busier for the work-at-home professional. Many of us feel as if we are walking a thin line and that any moment, we are going to fall.

We are trying to carry everything and everybody along with us on this journey and holding all of that while walking on the line is next to impossible.

The tightrope walker

Think of a tightrope walker. They have incredible balance, which is a good thing. Another thing is that they are prepared to go out and walk on that tightrope. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Balancing home/office Life, Time mgmt./Productivity Tagged With: , ,

Virtual Backups…Another Way to Protect Your Info

June 9, 2011 By Leave a Comment

SugarSync is one way to store you data virtually

You’d think that after I drowned my computer a few weeks ago, I would have moved on. For the most part, I have, but I still can’t help reminding everyone I know about how important it is to backup information often. In another guest blog post, Chelanie Israel shared tips for backing up data. Another way to back up data is through virtual drives. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Home office products, Home office technology Tagged With: , , ,

4 Simple Ways to Furnish Your Home Office

June 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

When I research home offices for the All Dressed Up page and look through photos readers submit, I get inspired to change my own home office…again. The photos have the same effect on some readers, while others feel they can’t do anything to change their home office.

If you want to change your home office, you can, and you don’t have to spend a fortune. The right rug, furniture and even accessories can affect the look and function of your space.

Start with a few basics.

  • Find furniture that fits. Look at the desk you’re using now. Is it too big or too small for your home office? Are you constantly stacking papers and anything else that doesn’t fit on your desk on the floor?Before I moved into my new home office, I measured the space and figured out how big my desk could be. I found a medium-size desk and return with tongue-in-groove detailing (it’s better to have a desk with drawer fronts that aren’t glued or nailed onto the drawer). The L-shape desk fits in my office and I still have room for a chair and two bookcases. [Read more...]
Filed Under: Home office design, Home office organizing, Working at home Tagged With: , ,

Secrets to Increasing Your Search Engine Rankings

June 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Driving visitors to your website takes more than just having good content. People need to know that your website exists.

Through Working Naked Day, the holiday I sponsor, thousands of people learned about Working Naked… the blog and the lifestyle. But now that the holiday is over, I spend time each day working on my search engine rankings through social media and other methods. I want to keep my site traffic strong.

I could hire someone to handle my search engine optimization (SEO) but that can be expensive. Instead, I downloaded the e-book “50 SEO Secrets for Mom Entrepreneurs” by Holly Klaassen (affiliate link). This e-book offers practical, quick, and effective tips that work not only for moms, but for anyone who wants to increase his or her site traffic.

Holly breaks down the mystery of SEO into 50 easy-to-use tips including:

  • Get traffic from Yahoo. Go to Yahoo Answers and run a search for topics related to your business or niche. Provide helpful and well thought out answers to questions and include a link back to helpful information or articles on your site.
  • Keep urls short. While your urls should be descriptive, they should also be fairly short. The shorter they are, the easier it is for people to remember them, cut and paste them into their blog or an email, or write on a business card.
  • Go after “long tail” keywords. Rather than trying to be found with popular (and competitive) phrases such as “chocolates,” try longer, more descriptive phrases such as “milk chocolate truffles.” [Read more...]
Filed Under: Improving your web site, Internet marketing, Working at home Tagged With: , , ,
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