Diogenes Publishing LLC - Diogenes Publishing LLC

AI Augmented Creativity Is For Real

3/3/2021

How many times have you struggled with trying to come up with a good idea? An idea for a business, for the perfect gift for someone, what to make for dinner, or what craft projects will keep the kids entertained. It often feels like the more effort and focus on coming up with the idea, the more out of reach it becomes. “Wracking your brain” is what my grade school teacher used to call this process, and it never really yielded great results then or now.

Information overload from reading through ad-laden internet posts does not usually provide ideas which inspire any confidence, as the resulting answers are random and impersonal, or may simply reflect the opinions of a few superusers of the site.

A new startup has taken ideation to the tech-age by utilizing Artificial Intelligence (AI) to analyze prompted information supplied by the requester to generate ideas specifically tailored to each request, thereby instilling a level of confidence not possible with random searches. Artificial intelligence has been on the horizon for many years but is now reaching a level of maturity making it a valuable and legitimate tool to solve real world issues and support human decision-making endeavors.

Give it a try for FREE at https://thought-ideas.com/home

Find the perfect gift idea, what to make for dinner, what books are recommended for you to read, business ideas and now You Tube Video ideas.

Feedback is always appreciated as the site is being perfected.

Learn Coding / Improve Your Health

12/29/2020

In these days of remote working and online interactions it is more important than ever to keep your mind active and engaged in something which will drive you forward. Many studies have confirmed that as we get older, it is vital to exercise our minds as well as our bodies in order to sustain our health and well-being. Continuous learning is the ley to maintain an active positive mind and continual growth of skills and confidence, even as we reach what most consider to be the tail end of our careers. The truth is that it’s not too late and yes you can teach an old dog new tricks. Keeping you mind challenged by learning something new has many immediate benefits, including: reduced stress, a more positive outlook, more confidence, a sharper mind, and even better performance at your job or possibly a new job or career altogether.
Now is an ideal time to explore the many options of online learning and developing new skills for the new economy or just for your personal satisfaction. Isn’t there something you always wanted to learn but never had the opportunity or the time? With the shift to virtual learning and remote work, there are many more options available to you that you never had before. You now have a world where you have some extra time by not commuting and you have more courses and certification programs online that ever before.
For me what I always wished learned when I was younger is coding and programming. This is a very dynamic filed which is constantly evolving and impacts all areas of our current society and economy. I always wanted to learn how things work and become a contributor to developing better technologies, not just a user of technology. I ended up in an engineering field and while this has bene good over the years, I will have a keen interest in learning the new and latest technology skills. This stuff makes me feel like a kid again and it also helps me contribute valuable ideas in my current engineering role. Lately I have stumbled upon a series of online programs designed to be engaging, fun, challenging and efficient in developing new coding and programming skills. All at a reasonable cost, and some it free! https://stude.co/1031503/coding-and-programming (disclosure: affiliate link). And now that I have just a bit more time…I am taking the plunge. There are so may compelling reasons to keep on learning and developing your mind and skills. You never know where this will take you.

Until next time...

So You Want To Start A Side Business, But You Have Hardly Any Time……

11/19/2020

There are many options for side income streams that can supplement your current income or provide a platform for a part-time side business that you cold eventually grow into a full-time venture (i.e. quit your day job). You must have seen many ads and webinars for “Affiliate Marketing”, “Taking Surveys”, “Franchising”, “Freelancing”, “Day Trading”, and the list goes on… All of these have the potential to make you some money but they do require an investment and commitment of time and/or money. If you are currently holding a fulltime job, and need it to pay for things like housing, health insurance, college, groceries, utilities etc., you likely do not have much of either of these to spare on a business venture that might or might not work. So what do you do?

First, you must decide on your life’s priorities. For me, yes I could spend all my non-working hours working on a side business, and I started out this way years ago, but soon realized that this would lead to giving up on things that were more important to me, like getting married and stating a family.

So the second step is to define just how much time you have available for a side business, and when you actually write it all down, it is more than you might think. You need to think of time outside the box of large dedicated hours and hours. For busy working adults, this time is more spread out; think about how I am writing this post now while waiting for the dentist. If someone asked me “you should think about starting a blog”, I would probably reply “I don’t have the time needed for that”. But somehow I do. Last weekend I reworked the website while waiting for 6 hours at DMV to get my license renewed. I have also gotten up just 20 minutes early to follow up on orders of my online products and hired writers to help with book manuscripts. Maybe free time is available during the commercials, or skipping a TV show now and then, it’s different for everyone but its within your control to identify and focus on the time you do have.

The third step is to define how much money you are willing to invest. If you are going for a franchise, you might need $200,000+. If you need specialized training or a certification you might need $5,000+. If you are starting a freelance writing business or blog you might need $50. It’s all up to you, but be clear up front so you don’t end up pouring more and more money into one idea when it might be better to reevaluate and change direction. For me, the time limitation dictated the money limitation. There was no way I would invest over $5000 in a business that I could only afford to spend a few hours a month on. I would surely end up losing this investment.

Last, you need to define a business that you will enjoy doing or one that gives you a purpose, something that drives you forward. If you start a side business that is pure drudgery, you will reach a point where it’s just not worth it to continue, even if you are making some money it will just not be worth the pain to push harder to grow it. More likely you will drop it or let is tail off.

So given all those considerations what types of side business will work? It will be different for each person and situation, but for me it became clear that producing a product which I had control over and selling it on an established marketplace was the right place to start. My product of choice was information products, namely eBooks, Print Books, Manuals and Business Templates. I took a few online courses to learn about this business and then hit the ground running. I create these products myself and I sell them on the following marketplaces, check these out:

It is definitely possible to startup and run a side business, even when “responsibilities” limit your time, funding and flexibility. It only become impossible when you give up or when you believe it impossible. Never give ever ever up!

Until next time.
All the best,

Erik

Have you ever thought about starting a “side business” or tried starting one (or more than one)?

11/5/2020

We are starting a forum for folks thinking about or running a side business. Check out our LinkedIn survey here: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6729871963050921984
There are endless programs and courses out there which claim to make you tons of money. You’ve seen headlines like this right? “In fact, I earned over $20k in royalties in a single day”, “…pushing a button, and watching earnings simply pour into your account…”, or “no experience, no selling, no website, no investment needed…”.
I have tried some of these myself (more than I care to admit) and while they do contain some valuable insights, none have lived up to the claims presented in the marketing ads. Has that discouraged me from continuing down the path of part-time entrepreneurship? Not at all. In fact what I have learned from this journey is that the reasons for having a side business are more than just making tons of money, and the reasons that most of these programs fall short is that they do not address the key requirements needed to be successful, and these are different for each of us and every situation is different, so there is no “one size fits all” program that works for anyone. But that should not stop nor discourage you from exploring and burning desire you have to make a side business work, which you just can’t shake. There are many good reasons for having a side business, besides getting rich, which are of different relative importance for each of us. Here are a few:

Diversification of income, not putting all your eggs in one basket.
Builds self confidence to be able to create and manage a business without having the safety network of an employer.
Control of your time and efforts, not being directed by a boss or dealing with organizational politics.
Learning new skills that motivate you and keep your mind active (very important as you get older).
Provides options to stay active and engaged after retirement, or when between jobs.
Possibility of making this a full-time occupation, when you are ready.
Gives you an opportunity to solve a problem that is meaningful to you and help people overcome this.
Provides work for others, can hire employees or enlist the service of others.
Creates a value-added entity that you can pass along to your children / heirs etc. or sell.

Now, as for reasons for being hesitant and/or not moving ahead with starting and/or growing a side business, be aware of these but DO NOT feel like having these concerns = failure, absolutely not! Use these concerns to help guide you in making more informed decisions. Keep forging ahead, you have more expertise, insights and good sense that you likely give yourself credit for. Don’t get discouraged by the disappointing get-rich plans that have not worked out in the past.
More to come on this topic – until next time.
All the best,
Erik

Therapeutic Baking

9/11/2020

Interest in baking is seeing a resurgence not seen since 100 years ago, when modern style cookbooks, specialized kitchen utensils and quality ingredients become widely available to many home bakers.

Baking requires complete focus and concentration and this can pull the mind away from stressful and/or depressive thoughts. These are the experiences missing from the fast-paced reactionistic expectations of modern existence and precisely the type of experience people are longing for when they talk about slowing down and de-stressing.
We have come full circle. Now that we have all the modern conveniences and packaged process food available to us, we have come to more fully appreciate the art and craft of baking bread and cakes ourselves and the mindfulness experience and satisfaction it brings, even in uncertain times.
100 years ago, there were many uncertainties being faced, including World War I, food rationing and the flu pandemic of 1918. Baking was an essential part of providing food for families and also a means of finding some escape from the daily stresses and comfort in a familiar and predictable experience. Baking today still provides the satisfaction and provokes healthy mindfulness that is very much needed now as it was then. Many of the favorite recipes we still enjoy today were first introduced to home bakers over 100 years ago. Over 200 recipes are included here.

Here are some old favorites that are still enjoyed today -

POTATO ROLLS
Very palatable rolls can be made from a similar mixture of boiled potatoes and flour by adding fat and sugar. The following proportions will yield about 1 dozen small rolls:

8 ounces boiled and peeled potatoes.
6 ounces or 1 ½ cups sifted flour.
1/3 cake compressed yeast,
3/4 level teaspoon salt.
2 tablespoons lukewarm water, milk, or cream.
2 tablespoons sugar.
2 tablespoons butter.

Boil, peel, and mash the potatoes as directed for bread making.
Add to this the salt, the yeast rubbed smooth and mixed with the water, or other liquid, and lastly 2 tablespoons flour. Set this mixture to rise at about 86 °F and allow it to rise until a touch will cause it to fall. Add to this sponge the butter, the sugar, and the remainder of the flour, and, if necessary, enough more flour to make a very stiff dough.

Knead thoroughly until a smooth dough has been formed which is no longer sticky. Set back to rise again, and when the dough has trebled (tripled) in volume knead lightly, form into small balls, and place, not too close together, in greased pans. Let rise until double in volume and bake 20 minutes in a moderately hot oven (about 400° F).

SELF-RISING BREAD
(type of sourdough, handy when yeast is in short supply)
This bread, which is commonly called by the misleading name of “salt-rising bread," has been known in one form or another for generations. It has been a particular favorite when and where it was difficult to get satisfactory yeast.

1 cup milk.
2 tablespoons white corn meal.
1 teaspoon salt.
1 tablespoon sugar.
Butter (if used), 1 tablespoon.
Flour (as needed – see below).

Scald the milk. Allow it to cool until it is lukewarm; then add the salt, sugar, and corn meal. Place in a fruit can or a heavy crock or pitcher and surround by water at about 120° F. Water at this temperature is the hottest in which the hand can be held without inconvenience, and can be secured by mixing nearly equal parts of boiling water and tap water (unless the tap water is unusually warm). Allow the mixture to stand for 6 or 7 hours, or until it shows signs of fermentation. If it has fermented sufficiently, the gas can be heard as it escapes.

This leaven contains enough liquid for one loaf. If more loaves are needed, add 1 cupful of water, 1 teaspoonful of salt, 1 tablespoonful of sugar, and 1 table-spoonful of butter for each additional loaf. Make a soft sponge by adding a cupful of flour for each loaf to be made. Beat thoroughly and put the sponge again at the temperature of about 120° F.

When it is very light, add more flour gradually until the dough is so stifle that it can be kneaded without sticking to the hands or to the board. Knead 10 or 15 minutes, put at once into the pans, allow to rise until about two and one-half times its original bulk, and bake. Self -rising bread is never so light as the bread raised with yeast. A loaf made with one cupful of liquid therefore will come not quite up to the top of a pan of standard size.

How To Stay Motivated - Staying On Track When Your Work and Home Lives Converge

4/28/2020

Face it, It’s a real challenge to get into a new routine, especially when you are thrown into one suddenly with little time to prepare. For most of us, even though working from home seems like it should be less stressful, it can feel more stressful as needs and expectations of work and home life come together and constantly compete for our attention and focus.

Hey, you’re not alone at all. The fact is, most people need structure in order to feel secure and enable them to effectively focus and perform consistently. Not having a familiar structure, like going into work every day at the office, can feel like not having a sturdy floor to stand on. And this then shifts focus from fully performing tasks to trying to maintain balance and not fall down. The result can be that less gets done and what does get done may not be done as well.

Even though working from home affords significantly more time saved by not commuting to and from the office, the results may not meet expectations and can lead to more stress. What is needed here is structure and realistic expectations. But unlike structure solely defined by outside organizations, structure for working at home also needs some self defined structure. Hey is what we call freedom, but like any other new experience it takes some time to become skilled at it.

So what are some common elements of structure needed to work remotely? Here are the most important:

Stick To A Routine That Works For You. There are stories on TV and online about people who never get around to eating breakfast until 3PM and have no time to take a shower… Woah! The fact is that if you used to get up and follow a routine getting ready for work, then you can and should still follow this routine now. You even have more time not commuting. Yes, it was easier to drop off the kids at school and pick up breakfast along the way or at work, but with some planning you can figure out how much time is needed to make and eat breakfast and then plan in when you need to do this in order to make the morning meeting or whatever is needed at the beginning of the work day. And don’t forget to include other routines you had, like exercising or meditating or going for a walk at lunch. This may be your old routine but it may have to be a new adjusted routine. The point is have a routine and stick with it. Familiarity builds a sense of control and security and provides the foundation needed to reduce stress and regain focus.
Make Daily Motivational To Do Lists. Making lists of tasks to complete is a very effective way to stay on track. Having this visual road map of milestones to achieve enables focus and helps to prevent getting distracted. One of the best ways to set up a task list is to first just think of why these tasks are important to get done, and then second, break down the tasks into doable actions.
- In the first step, do not focus on trying to have all the answers to how these will get done, this will get you overwhelmed really fast for sure and will result in agonizing over whether you can do something. If it seems important then write it down.
- In the next step, do not question why something was put on the list in the first step. The job here is to break down the high level tasks into actionable steps that you can complete within a set timeframe, like within a day or an hour or whatever you define. For example, build a new facility or hire a new staff is an overwhelming task to complete in a short time, but setting up intermediate tasks like calling an architect, developing 5 job descriptions, etc. are actions that can be completed in a short duration to support the long range goal.
- Motivational task lists are set up to ensure you have the best chance of ongoing short term successes. You can complete each action and check it off the list. This is key because when you can see that you have accomplished something, then you are motivated to keep working on it, rather than seeing it still isn’t done and then getting overwhelmed and stressed out.
Prioritize Tasks. You can’t do everything, not at once anyway. Multitasking is a myth and no one can do it effectively. It takes the average person 5-6 minutes minimum to switch gears from being focused on one task to changing to focus on another and be totally engaged in it. Even computers can’t really multitask, they just process stuff so fast it seems like they can. But you try asking the computer to do something while it is busy installing updates or pulling videos for ads, and it makes you wait until it finishes whatever it is distracted with. Multitasking is a myth and it is not the most efficient way to get things done well or quickly. So the most effective way to get the most done is always to set priorities. Do the important stuff first, do it well, check it off the list and then move on to the next thing on the list. And don't forget to prioritize taking care of yourself (take breaks, eat well, exercise, relax, stay in touch with people).
Utilize Calendars and Automated Tools To Stay On Track. There are so many tools around these days to help us stay organized and keep track of stuff, so make the best use of them. Use a calendar (paper or online) to keep track of all your tasks and appointments. You can have separate work and personal calendars, but for each category, keep one calendar and list of tasks. Notes scribbled and stuck on monitors and refrigerators and books tend to get lost and/or forgotten.
Keep In Touch With Coworkers and Friends. Being remote doesn't mean being isolated. Make some time and effort to communicate with folks who are important to you. Family, friends, coworkers. Send someone a note who you haven’t kept in touch with in a while and ask them how they are doing. Trade ideas about how to best work remotely or what tools work for them, you might learn a lot of things you didn’t think about before. You could keep an ongoing dialog to motivate each other on a regular basis. Hey this may even become a new routine. Set up a time to talk to a friend or family member. Put this into your calendar.
Schedule Time For Yourself. Very important as noted above. You must spend some time taking care of yourself or you will burn out. There are many stories of people working all the time and never being unplugged or off the clock. And yes there are times when you may need to put in extra effort to get work done, but this needs to be workable and that means you also need time to unwind and destress. So make sure you plan some of this time in to play a game or read a book or cook, play music or whatever helps you to destress, block out this time and make it part of your routine.
Prepare Tomorrow’s To Do List At The End Of The Workday Today. At the conclusion of the work day is a great time to look over your progress in completing tasks for that day, feel good about how much you accomplished, evaluate what you might have learned, and use this information to plan out the tasks for the next day. This keeps things moving in a logical progression and you won’t feel like each morning you are starting over.
Compartmentalize Your Time. Kind of alluded to this one before but it is important to set some boundaries where work and home life sit so they do not overlap and become one unfocused zone of conflicting tasks. This is a sure way to get stressed and burn out. Determine when and where you will work and set up start and end times and a work location and stick to this schedule unless absolutely necessary to do otherwise. When you are working, focus on work and when not working focus on personal time. Sounds logical but not easy to do. Practice makes it easier and reduces stress as this becomes a routine. Making task lists at the beginning and end of the work day helps a lot because it leaves a parking lot to park the work issues until you start up the next work day, rather than constantly thinking about them and fearing you might forget something or not get it done in time. If you have a workable plan and routine for getting things done then you don't need to worry about them all the time. Everything has its proper time and place.
Set Realistic Goals Based On Your Past And Present Results. This goes back to a motivational to do list. As you move along this path of working remotely, you will get a better and better sense of what is possible and realistic to achieve in how much time. Use this very valuable learning to drive the goals and objectives you set for yourself each and every day so that you have the best chances of succeeding consistently. This keeps the motivational momentum moving forward to the finish lines.
Keep A Running List Of Everything You Have Accomplished. Closely related to the last point, Keep a list of everything you have accomplished, it’s very likely a lot more than you realize. When you see all that you have done in writing, this provides a sense of confidence that you are in control of things and can manage very well. You probably already know the things you haven’t done, so no need to knock yourself down, as you are confident these too will get done. But don’t drop things off the list once they are done, definitely write down and review what you have done and what you have done well!

You deserve to feel good about yourself and how well you have managed all the changes and uncertainties and unfamiliar routines. You are on top of things and you will succeed!!

Why Virtual Meetings Can Be More Productive Than Face To Face Meetings

4/24/2020

It’s interesting, despite all the early challenges with setting up and figuring out how to use teleconferencing tools, online meetings have quickly evolved into very efficient results oriented events which produce more value per hour than the old fashioned low tech face to face meetings. Yes, there will always be challenges with network interruptions and computers that are slow and bugs in software, but overall the results after just one month focused solely on virtual meetings shows that we have advanced to being much more productive. Based on what criteria? Here are some key observations, you be the judge:

Meetings start on time. Everyone joins at or prior to the beginning of the meeting, if not they get notified instantly with popups, sounds etc on their workstation (their portal to the world). It’s a lot easier and faster to get a hold of people these days. It’s very apparent who is there / not there. No more delays from people walking between buildings or rooms or needing to go back to their desk to get files or being stopped along the way and drawn into another informal meeting.
Meetings are focused and get right to the point. Virtual meetings are more likely to have written agendas. No one wants to stare at a blank screen and no one wants their face dominating the screen either.
There are fewer distractions during virtual meetings. Yes there are some noisy kids and pets from time to time, but newer technologies and software are providing noise cancelling functionality to reduce this and people have become more proficient with muting when they are not speaking. During face to face meetings, there are a lot of things to draw people's focus from what is being presented, such as: what others are wearing, what’s going on in the hall, where they have to go next, or is everyone staring at me? Focusing on a laptop or mobile device tends to draw people totally in to the point where other distractions get tuned out, much like kids get totally absorbed in online games and older kids get absorbed in social media. So why not get people absorbed in participating in the meeting by hosting it on an addictive device?
Presentations can be easier to read with screen sharing vs. tinkering with the projector while it is too faded, out of focus, not recognizing your input, set for different refresh rate…. Also during virtual meetings, no one is the person in the back who can’t read the slides because they are too far away.
Side conversations are minimal or nonexistent. Conferencing software makes it apparent if side conversations are going on and also enables the organizer to mute folks who are creating background noise that shifts the focus of the meeting audio. This prevents a lot of tangents from extending the meeting and diluting the results in the process.
If someone does get interrupted with an urgent text or email, it's easier to reply on the same device you are already focused on, rather than shift your focus from the meeting presenter to pulling out a phone or opening a laptop and then navigating to the message.
Everyone has their notes, files and technology at their fingertips so if additional information is needed during the course of the meeting, someone can look it up and find it in real time and this can facilitate value added results, rather than making these follow ups or parking lot items.
Meetings end on time, or earlier. Given the improvements in focus and efficiency, virtual meetings tend to be shorter than their in person counterparts, sometimes lasting less than 50% of the time duration of an in person meeting.
Meetings can be back to back. You can end a meeting at 02:00 and then login to the next meeting within 30 seconds. No more lost time waiting for people to make their way over from another meeting somewhere else.
Virtual meetings are more likely to result in actions and/or decisions. With limited time to chatter on and engage in side conversations, the outcome of the meeting is more likely to be a definitive action and/or decision as the participants are more focused and engaged in the core meeting content and with shorter meeting durations, people are more likely to be paying better attention and less likely to tune out vs. in person meetings which can drag on, leaving people's minds to wander as they get increasingly bored and/or impatient.
No need to reserve a conference room. It's hard enough to find a time when everyone is available, then you also need to find when the much sought after conference room is available, and often times this pushes meetings out sometimes by several weeks. Virtual meetings typically happen much sooner and are calendar driven so no one forgets when it is and no one gets lost going to the wrong conference room.

The fact is, that even face to face meetings involve using technology - when was the last time you had to figure out how to connect to a conference room projection system? Or pulled a presentation off the cloud? So we already need to use these tools anyway. This is just the next step in the evolution and the results look extremely promising.

The Virtual Engineer - What I Learned (by Necessity) In the Last 4 Weeks And How I’ve Become More Efficient

4/21/2020

Plunging into the deep end of remote work has been an extreme paradigm shifting experience. Being an engineer supporting manufacturing operations, working from home in my circles has always been viewed as play-working and has been strongly discouraged as a lazy person’s way to get out of really putting in the effort to be productive. Now in 2020, given no other choice these same organizations have suddenly fully embraced remote work as a lifeline to keep things running while the world gets itself back together. As someone who has long sought an at least partial remote opportunity, this experience is not just that the glass is half full but it is overflowing. This is a chance to challenge the creative skills to prove this works and, even to my surprise, after one month I have found that this has worked out even better than I anticipated. In addition there are many new skills that I have learned and/or sharpened which can be very useful well into the future. These include everything from learning new software to new ways to stay motivated and new ways to be organized. All of these have actually improved my productivity as I have noticed as I am checking off completion of key project deliverables which I could never seem to get to while in the office. Out of every challenge comes a valuable learning opportunity, and here are some of the most valuable I have learned:

Conferencing Software That I Can Now Use Proficiently:

Microsoft Teams
Skype
Zoom
WebEx
GoTo Meeting
GoTo Webinar
Google Hangouts

No more “Hey I think you are on mute”, or “The lighting is bad”, or “I can’t see your screen”.

Cloud Based Systems That I Now Use Without Redoing Any Documents Or Asking for Help:

Microsoft Office 365 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
Outlook (email and Calendar)

I can now also seamlessly work between different computers and phones without losing anything!

Really Useful Productivity Tools I Have Recently Discovered:

Software and hardware that blocks out background noise during teleconferences. No more shushing the kids or trying to quickly talk then hit mute before the garbage truck backs up again. My son’s gaming headset includes a sound cancelling technology and works pretty well. There are also third party apps like Krisp that have made inroads into this. Microsoft is also working on incorporating this functionality into Teams.
Document Scanning feature already built into Apple iPhone Notes app. I never knew my old iPhone was a multipage PDF scanner, not until I needed to get a 25 page report approved and uploaded while working remotely. Not as easy to do as running documents through the office scanner, but way easier than taking an individual photo of each page and rendering all of them to PDF, and less expensive than buying a scanner (which are in high demand these days.
Power BI - Powerful Data Analytics tool for quickly evaluating and presenting key metrics and performance indicators using readily available data sources within your organization. Its like having your own virtual online consent to provide you information needed to confidently make important decisions based on real information. I never knew I had this power.
Using backgrounds for video conferences. I’ve found some really cool background posters online that look like a library, like you see the political commentators have on TV. I’ve also tried out the virtual backgrounds in Zoom and Teams, as well as the blurred background. I am now ready to be interviewed on CNN or FOX, just like the politicians and reporters you see.

Soft Skills I Have Significantly Sharpened Recently:

Improved written communications - how to be very clear and concise when conveying information and/or asking for information or assistance in written form (email or text). Getting the meaning across with the fewest words and least confusion, judged by how many questions come back in response. A perfect 100% score communication is one where the first response is “Thank you!”.
More efficient meetings.
- Meetings begin on time, get right to the point, reach a decision or agree on follow up actions, and then end on time (or earlier).
- Virtual meetings also have the advantage of being able to be run back to back. You can end a meeting at 2:00, sign out, and then sign into the next meeting within 30 seconds. No more lost time walking between conference rooms or buildings, not to mention being stopped in the hall and/or getting pulled into another conversation.
- Access to technology during meetings. I come from several organizations where bringing laptops or phones to meetings was viewed negatively as it was seen that people would be getting distracted rather than paying attention to the topic being presented. It can also be inconvenient to drag along a computer and other files to different meetings in different locations. By having access to your files and technology all the time, I am able to (almost) instantly look up and provide key information needed during meetings. This prevents the need for additional follow ups.
How To Really Value People’s Time and Use It Efficiently. In the current situation, there are a few folks who must still report into the office and their help is sometimes called upon to provide copies of documents or photos of various events occurring on site. I am now very mindful of the effort these people are putting in and I do my homework up front to make absolutely sure to only ask for just what is needed and ensure all requests are very clear and focused on one-time actions. This means no guessing at what is needed and avoiding follow ups like “oh I forgot to ask…..” and “that’s actually not what I needed….”, or “Oh yeah I also need….”. People’s time is valuable and people are putting in extra efforts these days, so treat this with the respect it deserves.
Being more organized and staying motivated. The most important component of staying on track with being motivated and productive is to keep to a routine that works for you. This means:
- Setting up a schedule of when you will start your work day, when you will break for coffee or lunch, and when you will end your work day.
- Set up a work area where you focus on work. This can be a spare room, a corner of a room or a folding table you set up in your room. Just designate a dedicated work space. Keep all your work stuff here. When you're in this space, you work.
- Stick to the routine you had when you worked in an office. If you got up early to exercise or meditate or read the paper, continue to do this.
- Make sure you still take care of your appearance. Continue to take showers, shave, comb your hair, wear presentable clothes, brush your teeth. Whatever you did when you worked at the office. You do not need a suit and tie, but not a great idea to roll out of bed in underwear and plop down in front of the computer, no matter how many ads you see for working in your PJs at the kitchen table. This does not work for everyone and this is the vision those managers have who don’t think working remotely is real work.
- Keep a do to list which you update at the beginning and end of each day. This can be on paper or using an online calendar. Also use the online calendar to set up reminders of key tasks, just like you did at the office.
- Make appointments with people to speak online if you have questions. If you cannot resolve the information you need within two emails or texts, then it's time to talk. This also helps to make you feel more connected to your work organization.

Benefits to the Employer of Working From Home

4/19/2020

Here are some of the real benefits to organizations (not just employees) that real companies are currently looking at:

Real estate savings in the $Millions from not having to maintain as many offices and buildings.
Employees working on average up to 5 or more additional hours per day since access to work is so easy at home and there is less stress and fatigue and wasted time commuting and getting stuck in traffic or caught in transit delays.
Employees having higher morale and willing to work harder and longer without expecting more money (many employees are willing to take a cut in pay in exchange for the flexibility to work remotely, even part of the time).
Geographic diversity, being able to recruit the talent needed without regard for location, willingness to relocate and relocation costs.
Inexpensive compliance with Americans With Disabilities Act, versus constructing appropriate accommodations within a company facility.
Reduced discrimination, people are evaluated based on what they can do rather than what they look like.
Remote meetings are shorter and more to the point so things get done efficiently and less time is wasted in excessive chatter and going off on tangents.
Enables effective Business Continuity Planning (BCP), without reliance on a specific location to be able to operate. The decentralized nature of working from home enables work to continue at multiple locations, even in the event of a disaster which stops work on some locations.

Bottom line: Working From Home really works and is not a way for employees to take a prolonged vacation and skip out on real work. Management still needs to provide structure and set appropriate goals with the objective of evaluating people's performance by what they get done.

Now Is Your Time - To Prove Just How Effective You Can Be Working From Home

4/18/2020

In the midst of all the uncertainty, fear and confusion going on right now in the world, it is important to hold onto the things that are within your control and and focus on what you can do right now to lift yourself up and look forward to a brighter and better future.
You’ve always wanted to be able to work from home or work remotely right? But most organizations have been very resistant to allowing remote work because remote workers are viewed as less productive or lazy or just taking a vacation and pretending to work (translation “If we can't see you and look over your shoulder, we don’t trust you to be responsible”).

But now all the rules have suddenly changed. No, this isn’t the way that I or anyone would have ever wanted it to be, but since we are forced to be in this situation anyway, why not use this opportunity (if we can call it that) to prove that working remotely from home really does work and it works very well.

Now that many of us are participating in this mandatory study of the effects for working remotely, the data is showing that people are actually more productive and effective in producing more work and engaging in more working hours during the day versus commuting into the office or work location each day. In fact, recent data shows people are 55-70% more productive in terms of work output per day now that they are working remotely. The apparent reasons for this are many, including the following:

No time spent commuting to and from work. This includes reduced stress of driving in heavy traffic and/or mass transit delays,, in addition to time saved. This could add up to 2 or more hours per day that can now be used for productive work time.
Fewer distractions from “informal meetings” (people popping into your workspace, conversations in the break room, Hallway conversations and getting pulled into meetings by chance encounters).
Increased flexibility lets you work when you are most productive and maximizes greatest results in least time.
Greater freedom of time enables proper balancing of work and personal/family time leading to less stress, greater focus when at work and increased loyalty of employees to the organization that is supportive of their efforts.

Now is the time to keep this momentum moving forward. We have all the tools we need to be able to connect and collaborate remotely and we can make this work, now and into the future as needed. This time and situation will pass but let’s hold onto all the valuable lessons learned.Bottom line is that this is really working and now there is real data to back this up. And answer all the doubters out there. Working from home is real work and gets real results, sop let’s not go back to looking down upon those who desire to work remotely, they are very valuable contributors and need to be supported.

Look for more articles on how to maximize efficiency working remotely, what tools work well for remote work and more to come...

Not Confident Employees Are Productive Working Remotely? Technology Has Some Answers

4/10/2020

In the ever-rapidly evolving world of online ework, technology has emerged to answer one of the age-old concerns about letting people work remotely “Are they really working?” Software is now available to track remote workers’ time and productivity. In addition, this software can also provide productivity benefits to organizations including automation of: time sheets, project milestone tracking, invoices, and performance against objectives. This data can be used to objectively evaluate the effectiveness of remote work and efficiently manage remote teams, making employees more accountable and freeing supervisors from micromanaging. For organizations still wading into the waters of ework, this software can provide the data needed to move towards a more efficient future with confidence.
An excellent application for ework tracking is Time Doctor.
This application is simple to use and easily lets managers track:

Time spent on work sites vs. outside sites
Time logged in/out of work systems
Attendance
Progress and time spent on specific tasks
Inactive time (logging in and walking away)

The system documents all this so you don’t have to spend your time doing it. Check it out:
https://www.timedoctor.com/features.html

Cybersecurity and BCP – The Evolution of Business Continuity Planning

3/6/2019

Years ago when I got involved in what was then called “Business Assurance Planning”, the top threats to sustain business operations were fire, power outage, and natural disasters like floods, bad weather, earthquake. All of the contingency planning centered around finding another location work out of and making sure IT systems were backed up with copies stored off site. Then Y2K brought awareness of the vulnerabilities of all the IT systems we rely upon, even in the absence of a natural disaster, and we started to think about how we would operate if our IT systems stopped functioning.

Business Continuity Management and Succession Planning

2/27/2019

An effective Business Continuity Plan (BCP) typically includes IT disaster recovery plus contingency/backup plans for critical business operations. Most BCPs focus on restoring key business functions in terms of relocating facilities, machinery, people or equipment so that the operations necessary to keep the business alive can be carried on even if the business is hit with a flood, fire, blizzard, etc.

Components Of An Effective BCP Template For Small Businesses

2/20/2019

Small businesses have different needs, and different resources, than large corporations when it comes to Business Continuity Planning. While large corporations may decide to hire BCP consultants to craft a customized detailed business continuity plan for their operations, which can be complex and geographically distributed, small businesses may need a less complex business continuity plan template which is straight forward and easy to implement by internal resources.

What Does BCP Stand For?

2/15/2019

BCP stands for Business Continuity Planning. BCP is a process of identifying the potential risks to your business and then evaluating how to prepare for these so that if they do happen, you have a working plan to enable your business to continue to be viable. This means that you are still able to operate at some level needed to meet customer needs and to be able to resume normal operations at a defined point in the future. Lack of adequate BCP means that a disaster could put you out of business permanently.

The Importance Of Continuity Planning For Any Business (Even Small Businesses)

2/13/2019

A Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is a roadmap to enable a business to continue operations under adverse conditions, such as an unforeseen disaster or other unplanned interruption to the business. This includes:
Natural Disasters, such as: bad weather, flooding, earthquake, disease, etc.

Email That Gets Results – Do These 5 Things And Spend Less Time Following Up

2/5/2019

In the modern business world, we have lots of quick and easy channels of communication. Remember the old days when we used to actually have to write a memo (on paper) and actually send it to someone? Now we have instant communications with email, IM, text… Things should get done faster and better now right? Well that’s not exactly how things have evolved.

Effective Decision Making – Get These 5 Steps Right And Everything Else Becomes So Much Easier

2/4/2019

One of the biggest ticket items in being successful in anything you do is making effective decisions. If you want to go somewhere, you need to decide where you want to go and follow a consistent set of directions. Remember, the most efficient way to get there is in a straight line. Same is true for projects, goals, objectives, dreams….anything you want to do. The challenge is to make an effective decision which will accomplish the objective in the least amount of time and effort and this requires the following:

Emergency Preparedness And Business Continuity Planning Go Hand In Hand

2/2/2019

Emergency Preparedness includes planning and training and taking proactive action to be ready to do what needs to be done to ensure survival and safety, in case of an unplanned emergency or disaster. Emergency Preparedness is important for families and communities as well as organizations.

Business Continuity Planning (BCP) focuses on taking proactive steps to ensure the viability of a business during and after a time of unplanned emergency or disaster. This a goes above and beyond IT disaster recovery, as the focus of IT disaster recovery is to restore IT systems and data but does not address other aspects of the business.

How to Use Common Software To Thrive In Today's Lean Organizations

2/2/2019

As organizations continue to restructure and become more lean than ever, many of us find ourselves today with more and more work to do since there are less and less people left to do it. When my parents were in the work force, if you needed a report written or a presentation put together you could ask your department secretary (later renamed the "admin") or you could go to the graphics department to help you out. Today the expectation is that you will do all of this work yourself. In addition, as people leave organizations the expectation is that business continues on as usual with no interruptions; which means their work gets added onto yours.

Do These 5 Things To Avoid Common Productivity Killers And Really Get Things Done Effectively

2/2/2019

A common gripe in every organization I have been associated with is “we need more people” or “we have too much to do and not enough hours in the day”. Have you heard these things? It seems to be a common theme no matter how many people there are because there are always more ideas out there and it is always much faster to think or re-think of things that need to be done much faster than anyone can possibly do them.

Adaptability In The Ever-Changing / Paradigm-Shifting / Cheese-Moving Business World – Keeping Up with the “Priorities Du Jour”

2/2/2019

In today’s constantly evolving business landscape, it seems impossible to plan ahead for any long term career in any one area. Years ago, a common interview question was “where do you want to be in 5 years?”, and the expectation was that you would be furthering your career in the organization who was interviewing you. But we all know that times have changed

5 Steps To Achieving Balance In Your Life

1/18/2019

Much of the “stress” and “work / family” issues people experience comes down to feeling you have no control of how your time is spent; you are unable to spend your life-energy in alignment with your life priorities. There is so much important urgent stuff to do that you just have no time left for things which are important to you. Some of us tell ourselves we can put off until we have time, like learning French or taking up golf or eating better...

Choosing The Right College Is One Of The Most Important Decisions In Your Life, So Make Sure You Have All The Information You Need - When You Need It Most

9/21/2018

After visiting several colleges over several months and gathering tons of information, it can be overwhelming to attempt to put it all together and honestly compare all of the schools you visited at different times.