BossTalks.com Tag: time

white on "Working from home: pros and cons"

white — Fri, 16 May 2008 16:58:25 +0000

I am a 100% agree. I would even better typical 3/2 situation, but with a flexible hours.

wakina on "Working from home: pros and cons"

wakina — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:12:52 +0000

Hi guys, I have been working from home for about 5 years. and sometimes its great and sometimes its not. I love the ability to work my hours and do things on my time. However, it can sometimes be very isolating. I think I do miss the buzz of the office world and the people contact

However on the hother hand, I dont miss the office politics and the every day work commute. I think the ideal situation may be to work from home 3 day s a week and 2 days in an office setting.

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green on "Working from home: pros and cons"

green — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 09:14:56 +0000

May be the way out is to work around people? Starbucks and other places. It's not office, and not a home. Something in the middle ;-)

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susanvarghese2007 on "Working from home: pros and cons"

susanvarghese2007 — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:42:53 +0000

Boy..I agree!...I have worked in both- office and home. I feel even more responsible when I work from home...I know no one is watching- but at the end of the day- you have to show some output! It's tougher when you are a non-billable person...and it's even more tougher when your supervisors trust you with your work!

But apart from all the said above, I must say that when it comes to working from home- you are your own boss- I can be more organized, less of distractions (you see I don't like to have colleagues around ALL the time) and of course do things at my own pace- that includes having my meal in front of my PC too! However, it'd be nice to work in an office set up too once in a while- You see, the PC cannot be always the best of a man's companion!

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leninkster on "Hard work vs long work?"

leninkster — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 14:57:11 +0000

I think that either way you choose to work, the approach you take dictates the actual amount of productivity you achieve.
I have worked, out of necessity, in both modes. I learned very early on thay irrespective of the model you use, it is in the way you manage your time that affects your productivity. I suspect that if you are an unorganised sort of person, or one whose mind is constantly looking for another thing to sink its teeth into, then working for more shorter periods are more productive. If you tend to be focussed and organised, and can carefully schedule you time, and avoid distractions, then single longer periods of work might be right for you.
In either case, if you are easily distracted, and lose track of time, then it doesn't matter which approach you take, you are doomed to a life of unproductiveness antil you get control of your time. Remember the quote by Ernest Hemmingway, "Never mistake motion for action"

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green on "Hard work vs long work?"

green — Tue, 08 May 2007 09:38:01 +0000

Longer hours. I still can accomplish more by working for whole day, then to work even very-very-very hard but only one-two hours a day...

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white on "Hard work vs long work?"

white — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 08:01:49 +0000

Well, one more question about personal time management. As it was mentioned by Seth Godin in one of his books, there is a big difference between long working and hard working. These are different kinds of work and produce different results. I know that a lot of people blindly believe that long working is a necessarity for a success. Personally, I used to spend numerous hours on different projects, until I figured out that I am not that successful on all these projects at all. However, I remember making tough decisions and taking risky steps, that was making my work harder, but I could spend less hours on it. The hard work made me less tired then long work, it was even given me more energy and excitement. However, if my hard work screws up, it's much harder to recover from it.

That's the choice: do you like longer hours or harder times? And what does make you work more successful?

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johnw on "Personal time management?"

johnw — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 06:54:25 +0000

I can say only software I am using - because I never had that many of projects and tasks that I need to keep track on them. I am using Plaxo (http://www.plaxo.com/), which is a cool thing. Syncs with Mac address book (have iMac at home), and syncs with Outlook/Thunderbird if you are PC user. Free, yes. It has also something for mobile sync, but never used it. Actually, for my "time management" it's enough to have address book sync'd ;-)

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white on "Working from home: pros and cons"

white — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 14:46:45 +0000

Hi guys. What do you think about working flexible hours and do the most of work from home?

Personally, I am working from home for more then 8 years now. My home job was combined with office job for some periods of my life, but they never worked for me as good as home job. And here are two cases for me. The first case is working for somebody else, and the second case is working for myself (either own company or being a self-employed).

Lets start from working for somebody else. I spend more time working. I care more. I keep an eye. This normally doesn't happen to me when I am working from office. I've got fixed hours of work, after that I am completely "disconnected" and there is no way somebody can make me think about the work. Why should I? However, from the other side, I (may) have problems concentrating working from home. It depends on the way how you manage your time, but it could be an issue.

Well, the situation when you are working for yourself is different. I don't have such big difference between an office and home, except feeling myself much more comfortable by laying down on the bed with laptop, instead of doing the same in the office, when some (hired) people can't do this or don't feel comfortable with laying on the bed in the office. :)

So in total I feel myself very comfortable working from home, however, nice office is a good thing to have (to make a business meetings or have company parties :).

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white on "Personal time management?"

white — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 20:38:11 +0000

Well, being messed up with the things which I am constantly missing or loosing, I decided to thought a bit about the time management. I saw a lot of books devoted to it, huge books with hundreds of pages. More than that, I've read some of them. However, I got to disagree with the ones, which propose an ultimate way to your personal time management.

I believe that every single man is unique (although, there could be other unique guy much similar to the first one :). So nobody can have a one way for managing the unique guys.

Let's continue with the simple my own life example.

Personally, I'm engaged into several projects, when every one of them has its own tasks, preferences and requirements. Speaking about the tasks, I'm noting every one, putting in the queue. Well, but this doesn't help. I'm still missing the tasks, getting busy with other things (sometimes way less important than a missing task).

My next step was prioritizing them. Hmm, that made the tasks looking nice in my Entourage and iCal, but that's all. Nothing more, except the fact that I see the more important tasks first. But, with my personality, it didn't solve the problem. More than that, sometimes it started to become my pain in the ass to prioritize them. It's not easy to find the most important one among two really important tasks. I gave up.

The next cool thing was placing a due dates for a tasks. It was really cool and much more helpful -- I was constantly kicked with the reminders, what is great. Except the two things. Sometimes it's not easy to set the due dates. But you can make it. The other thing is more important. You are getting kicked by the reminders only when you are too close to the due date. So you may not have enough time to accomplish the task in time! And this really sucks.

Well, my next and the last step was putting the tasks directly into Calendar. I choose the dates and the time. I can easily see how day is loaded and I can more the tasks vice-versa. (Yes, I'm a kinda visual guy!) Well, I can't set the priority, but I don't need it -- I don't care about the priority when I know the exact date for the work. Besides, my PDA is always showing me the tasks on the main screen, so I never forget. ;)

So conclusion of my example is easy: it's always about time management, but not about the way how you (yes, you, the only you, and nobody else) would keep the track of your life. You may find my way terrible and ugly, but I don't care while it works for me. (Well, I do care. If you know the better way of keeping an eye on your tasks, please let me know ;)

P.S. My example is good for small, but necessary to be done tasks. You would not be very productive using such method with the bigger tasks. But you can always split them into millions of small tasks. ;)

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white on "How often do you run out?"

white — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 19:13:56 +0000

Forgot to answer my own question. Well, speaking about myself, personally I almost don't run out, but sometimes I am sending my wife and my little son somewhere. Sometimes, I miss a separate room with the door, which can be locked. ;)

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white on "How often do you run out?"

white — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 19:06:03 +0000

I met my boss this afternoon. He was working at home. He's got a lot of things to be done. I asked him: "You ran away from noise, didn't you?". He said: "Yep, kind of. Too crowded over there."

I am definitely going to give him a book to read. He'll like it. It's a Peopleware. Page 43. Chapter 8. Quote:
..."One of our seminar participants reported that her new boss wouldn't allow her to work at home, so on the day before important report was due, she took a sick day to get it done."

A lot of questions answered.

But how often do you run out of your house, offices or any other places, where normally you are supposed to work in?

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