Quickbooks online edition

Self discipline more….

Before I show you my collection of great Internet tools that are sure to help you to operate remotely, I should discuss one more item connected with self management and specifically to do with keeping your focus and levels of concentration

I’ve observed and established a consistent habit in acquaintances who work on the web and I’ve known for over a long time line and I call this habit the fifty min effect. I identified these contacts who apply themselves and work for fifty minutes and then always take a complete 10 mins. rest and are much more efficient and generate a considerably higher quality of work than colleagues who don’t have well organised working methods.

OK as promised for your consideration is my list of preferred remote working software:

E-Mail

Google Mail won’t cost you a penny. My friends and I all agree the search and label (a bit like folders) features are superior to anything I have previously seen. The downside is it can be a bit slow on older machines

Phone calls

Skype occasionally drove me to despair as the service performance was unacceptable, but all credit to the developers at Skype now as they have really improved the quality of the service. For few dollars a quarter Skype lets me call and conference in any handset and Skype subscriber on the planet. The current version of Skype has an abundance of really good features and there are now plenty of of useful add on applications.

Organising Content

Evernote has secured more than a million users in a very short space of time – it enables you to store, organise and add notes to any species of digital media in the Cloud. Just go check it out…it’s free.

Invoicing, Time and Expenses capture, Accounting and CRM

You almost certainly know that my desire to work remotely was originally inspired by Quickbooks Online, a small business accounting software system. But it is shadowed by the free edition of salesorder.com – a lead to cash system that’s as easy to use as a pencil I looked at NetSuite whose pricing (and people) scared me off. My choice here is salesorder.com – Go check it out.

Quickbooks online edition

Obviously not everyone can work remotely as there are some types of work that require us to be at their employers premises or travel to undertake their duties in person. But for those of us who are allowed to work remotely then I thought it would be useful to share what I have learned and give some practical directions by putting it on the web in the hope that I could give others useful advice for adapting to remote working or managing remote workers.

I would caution you that there are a lot of so called ’experts’ online who will try and sell you e-books for large sums of money, take my word for it you don’t need to do this.

I am fortunate to be permitted to work anywhere I choose and just about everybody who asks me what I do for a living wants to learn how I am able to work remotely. Don’t get me wrong here I am still learning about the art of remote working as each day I encounter individuals on the Internet who teach me new tricks and I am constantly uncovering new packages and approaches that make my life simpler and increase my productivity.

In the past 7 years I have substantially adapted my working methods to allow me to do most of my work remotely with a box of online tools and robust self discipline. One lunchtime whilst browsing the net I came across Quickbooks online and this opened my eyes to what just might be possible. The discovery of ’hosted’ ‘on demand’ small business accounting software was a special moment for me and the start of my ‘remote working history.

I have to mention up front that successfully working remotely is as much about the tools as it is about self discipline. Working remotely also means informing your colleagues, managers and clients as to what they can expect and how they will communicate with you.

In ‘Remote Working Part 2 – Self discipline essentials’ I discuss how to focus.

Quickbooks online edition

The top reason workers fail to succeed at operating remotely is they don’t recognise the need for good organisation and robust self discipline.

I have been operating remotely for over seven years since I first found Quickbooks online an ‘on demand’ small business accounting software service and was inspired by the fact that if you can perform accounting on the net then why shouldn’t you be able to do other key types of of work at a distance?

Whilst working remotely has a lot of positives there are numerous pitfalls which convert into issues that cause lower productivity and lower motivation. The most significant reason for reductions in effectiveness in remote employees is disruption and it is a established and well publicised fact that it can take a person up to twenty minutes to establish their original efficiency level after experiencing a disturbance.

Research also shows that people who are regularly experience disruptions are more likely to be susceptible to decreased memory power and are prone to developing mental health problems in old age. We exist in an over communicated environment and it is important that you recognise the problems this causes before you decide to work remotely. Whilst working remotely you have to do everything possible to reduce the probability of being distracted.

Here are things that really do work:

1, Get a habit, make sure that everybody knows it and stick to it!

Good examples are a fixed time of day when you review or compose and reply to mail and make or receive telephone calls. Before I began working remotely I used to get in the region of two hundred e-mails in 24 hours. Now I think I am unfortunate if I receive over 4. To ’reset’ my e-mail experience I modified my e-mail address and vigorously took precautions to defend the details being made available to anyone. I then ‘trained’ every person who I gave my e-mail address to, to use it prudently. I also created an automatic response that swiftly informed anyone sending me mail my routine for processing mail and if someone required my urgent attention to mark it as ‘Urgent’.

2. Get rid of alerts.

Turn off every function that can send you a interruption. This includes cell and
ordinary phones and types of alerts from electronic mail such as display events, beeps, screen changes to your inbox folder and of course facing a window. Get a door on your work place and put up a ‘do not disturb’ sign on it.

In ‘Remote Working Part 3 – My list of essentials’ I will reveal my favourite tools and software.