We know that we have 24 hours in each day and that this should be plenty of time for us to complete everything that we have to do, with ample time to spare. The dawn of each day should bring a fresh outlook to all of us and we should feel rejuvenated and ready to tackle anything that life has in store. However, for one reason or another it seems that we are always playing catch-up, despite what we might feel are our best intentions. When the sun has set and the hours are winding down, we often feel frustrated, as we have not had enough time to complete all those tasks. Here are seven ideas for "finding" that extra hour each day!

1. Set up your phone so that all calls are processed before they reach you. There are some great programs available these days, including Google Voice, which will help you to prioritise the calls that you really need to take and leave the time wasting calls. You can even block unwanted or troublesome calls through the system. By having your own, personal secretary in this way, you will not waste valuable minutes.

2.  Realise the value of outsourcing.  What is an hour of you time worth? If you haven't calculated it, do it now!  Chances are an hour of your time is NOT worth you spending it doing all the things that you find difficult, time-consuming and repetitive.  Make a list of all the things that suck up your time. Concentrate on what you excel at and start flexing your outsourcing muscle, perhaps initially by trying to outsource just one thing that is sucking up your time. That might mean finding a cleaner, engaging the services of a Virtual Assistant or finding someone who can do your ironing much faster than you can!

3. Explore time management software programmes.  Once you've experimented and found the one that works for you, learn how to use it and stick with it. It might seem a bit alien to you at first, but if you are really stringent, you will save a great deal of time each day by focusing your attention. I use an appointment scheduling system now for my clients (www.timedriver.com ) It took some getting used to, but it's saving so much time each week that I previously spent with emails and voicemails going to and fro trying to find mutually convenient times for calls!

4. When it comes to planning, make sure that you actually do it! If you have a rather muddled list of things that you have to accomplish in your head, you will bounce back and forth between these chores and not be efficient. Allocate time to plan ahead, whether this takes place during the prior evening, or when you first wake up.  Research has shown that an hour planning any project saves at least four hours. Block out time in your diary on a quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily basis to plan and you'll find that you avoid diary clashes and that you naturally become more focussed.

5. Allocate an hour for communication and "batch process" that communication time. This includes all those call-backs that you might have to make, the checking of e-mail, updating of Facebook or other social networks. You would be amazed how much time can be lost if you're constantly checking e-mails or taking phone calls without a structured plan.

6. When you're planning your time, include a "buffer" at appropriate intervals. This means that you should not plan one task after another within an unrealistic time frame. If you allocate a certain amount of "buffer," you will not get sidetracked, harried or fall off your schedule.

7. Combine your exercise time with "catching up" time. If you allocate, say 30 to 45 minutes a day for physical activity, combine this with your time to catch up on the news and current affairs. This could mean the installation of a television in your workout area, or this may now become the time to listen to a particular media channel or even to read updates through your electronic book reader.

What do you think?

Photo Credit:  Steve Grosbois

When I first started workshifting, I believed it was the best thing since sliced bread.  It gave me freedom, and it gave me flexibility.  Overall, I loved it.  Then, a funny thing started happening. Even though my total number of hours at the office were less, my total number of hours working were more.  A lot more.  I caught myself responding to e-mail on evenings and weekends.  I got sick, and while I didn't go into the office, I was still working from my sickbed.  I started answering my cell phone while out of the country.  In short, workshifting was taking away my freedom.

The worst part about all this was that no one had ever said to me, "We need you to be on call all day, everyday."  I had started doing this all by myself, simply because I could.  It started off innocently enough.  "Well, if I reply to this e-mail now, I won't need to reply when I get to work in the morning."  Every workshifter knows that train of thought.

But once that starts happening, workshifting becomes a cage.  It takes away freedom, and it makes you a prisoner of your own work habits.  Shouldn't the goal of workshifting be to do the exact opposite?

I understand that there are certain hours that need to be maintained.  Most people have jobs that require them to be available during the middle part of a day to take client calls, or troubleshoot with colleagues, etc.  However, very few of us have jobs that require us to be available all the time, and that's why workshifters need to learn how to fight the urge to work at any time, because more often that not, the prison is of our own making.

Once you start answering e-mails at 11pm or on a Sunday, it becomes expected that you will always be available.  The best way to avoid this is to never start, but if you're like most of us, and have already developed that bad habit, begin scaling it down.  I used to check work e-mails every day and on weekends.  Now I cut that back to checking e-mail only during work hours, and even then only at pre-determined times.  A few ways I've done this:

Separate work e-mail from personal e-mail.  I used to have all e-mail forwarded to one inbox. That was the easiest way to go from dropping a note to a buddy, to responding to a 2-page e-mail from a client or sales rep.

Realize that most e-mails are not urgent.  I believe that my work is important and that I'm helping people run their businesses successfully, but I also recognize that I'm not saving lives.  In my line of work, there is nothing that needs to get done right now.  Everything can wait a few hours, so there's no need to reply to every e-mail the moment it hits the inbox.  That's inefficient, and an easy way to start spiraling out of control.

Unplug damn it.  You know that blackberry that's sitting in your pocket dinging every thirty seconds?  Turn it off.  Everything will be okay, and the world will not end.  If you're worried about missing a call from your family because you turned your 'Berry off, just turn off the e-mail alerts, and leave the phone on. Or, better yet, have two numbers and two phones: one for work, and one personal.

Now that you've set your colleagues' and clients' expectations, there are a few more things you can do to make sure you work on your schedule, not a schedule that's been defined for you.

1. Less real-time meetings.  If you enjoy meetings, either there's something wrong with you, or you don't really have much real work to do.  Meetings are a the biggest productivity sink in the corporate world, and the bane of most knowledge workers' existence.  Luckily, there are alternatives.  Most meetings can be avoided by sending concise, well-written e-mails to the right people and asking for specific responses by a specific time.  Alternatively, there is software that allows people to post notes to a communal board, and you're free to respond when you can.  Google Wave can be used for this purpose (for all its over-hype, the tool works), or 37Signals' Basecamp, or a company Wiki could work.

2. Have something you'd rather be doing, and enjoy doing it.  Oftentimes, we check in with work because we're bored.  Well, if you have the freedom of a workshifter, you have the freedom to do whatever you want.  Pick something you'd rather be doing than working, and do it.  It doesn't matter if you're going for a 10-mile run, writing a manuscript, or whittling furniture.  If you're doing something you love, you won't be tempted to check in at work.

3. Go some place you can't possibly be disturbed.  If all else fails, find a place where you can't be disturbed.  Believe it or not, the whole world isn't connected... yet.  Usually, this is an issue for workshifters who can't find good wifi, but use it to your advantage.  Find a place with no wifi and no cell phone reception and shack up there.  Extreme?  Perhaps.  Effective?  Definitely.

4. Remember why you wanted to workshift in the first place. All workshifters turn to workshifting for one reason: freedom. When workshifting is imprisoning us rather than liberating us, we're doing something wrong. Take the hint, look at what you're doing and fix what's broken.  Reclaim your freedom.

What do you think? What have you done to make sure workshifting hasn't taken over your life?


Photo Credit: Rosh PR

We have been advertising GoToMeeting in airport terminals and in airline magazines for many years.  Initially we lead with "Do More Travel Less" messaging.  For good reason, the airlines asked us to modify the message to speak more appropriately to their travel audience.  We adopted the message on a case by case basis, and one example of that was "Down Time is the new Up Time".



I am sensitive to the fact that travel industry is facing very challenging times.  However, by eliminating all GoToMeeting messaging, they are basically saying that travelers are so naive they will not possibly know these tools exist, so let's be really quiet and maybe they wont find out!

American Airlines considered our messaging to be "anti-travel".  Ok, I have to admit that if I were in their shoes, I'd see it that way as well.  Admittedly, my company's travel costs have declined as a result of using online meeting tools.  However, we still very much need to travel to see clients, family, friends...in other words, we are still human.  The new tools just allow us to be more selective about when we travel.  American needs to spend time getting at that information.  Which travel are we foregoing versus when is travel necessary?  If I was marketing for the airline, I'd get to that information and message to it.  I believe a climate where technology is promoted and integrated into the travel experience is a much more effective use of resources than viewing them as contributing to the demise of the travel industry.  We offered to change our messaging, and still, they declined.

Our latest airport creative in running at LAX and it speaks to the ability to present from anywhere...even while you're naked

 

It's not anti-travel, it's anti-ignorance.  What it says is you have the freedom to present, and the location is irrelevant.  I have used online meeting tools to present from an airport and even on the plane.  It's such a better use of my time when I travel to know that I can conduct business seamlessly.

I expect an airline to embrace technology, so as to improve the travel experience.  In a prior post I wrote about how we are all in the Unified Experience business.  Airlines are no exception.  This would have been a great opportunity to acknowledge that customers have a choice, and when they do need to travel they will encourage the use of the tools that help make the most of their trip.  A perfect example is GoGo Inflight internet access.  It's wonderful to be able to work in real time from an airplane.

We work with lots of great airlines and airports that have embraced technology and online meetings.  Here are a few:

Alaska
SouthWest
United
Virgin

Los Angeles
San Francisco
Chicago
Miami

As Workshifters and business travelers it is our responsibility to be an effective voice.  I don't recommend you read this and then bash American in the blogsphere.  See this as an opportunity to reach out in a constructive format and ask them to encourage the use of technology and even to consider promoting it.

American Airlines is still my preferred airline when I travel.  I'm going to stick with them because I believe they will come around. 

How will you help? What are your thoughts?
 

Today Andrew Millard stops by from across the pond to give his input on how to retain business continuity in the face of the unexpected.  Andrew is the eCommerce Director of EMEA at Citrix Online.

This winter has seen some extreme weather conditions on both sides of the Atlantic with snowfall causing havoc for businesses and employees alike. Of course, as savvy workshifters know, it doesn't have to be like this! But the sad fact is that there are many who are just not as prepared for these unexpected conditions when they occur.

In the UK, we conducted some research during the heavy snowfall that hit in January and found that the cost of the inclement weather was £1.35bn in lost productivity for British businesses in just one week!

In addition to this, we found that despite 78% of small businesses saying they were prepared to cope with the snow chaos, over half admitted that their business suffered as a result of the winter weather.

When we look at the impact on employees, around a quarter of British workers claimed they lost more than five working hours, with as many as 124 million working hours estimated to have been lost in total.

Let this be a warning!

But now is not the time for us to breathe a sigh of relief.  More snow is predicted, and it's just one of any number of unexpected events that can prevent workers getting into the office. During the rest of the year we're likely to face a gamut of other incidents that will make life hard for employees and employers, whether its strikes on public transport, natural disasters or something totally unexpected.

So for all those businesses that were impacted by the snow, now is the time to get your business continuity plan in place, so that next time round there will be no nasty surprises and you have the right processes and technologies in place so productivity losses are avoided.



And it doesn't have to be hard! Here are my five top tips for businesses on how to prepare for the unexpected:

1.    Communicate clearly in advance - make sure your workers know what they need to do if they can't get into the office

2.    Equip employees with the right technologies - remote access and Web conferencing tools can help them remain productive even if they can't get to their desk

3.    Talk to your customers - Phone redirects and remote access software will allow you to go about business as usual, but if clients or customers are likely to be affected let them know as early as possible and keep communication channels open

4.    Consider alternatives - Travel to the office or to client meetings may be impossible, but instead of canceling, conduct the meetings online instead

5.    Put in place a business continuity leader - if the unexpected happens, it's wise to have one person in your organization responsible for coordinating efforts and informing all staff of the potential impacts and company policies


What will do you to prepare for the unexpected?


Photo Credit: Anirudh Koul

I have come across quite a few blog posts where the first paragraph is a general complaint about the hours we work; where we are the victim and technology is the weapon. To that I say, ignorance is bliss.  From my perspective, we CHOOSE to work beyond the confines of traditional work hours because we can.  We can, because we have the tools, not vice-versa.

It seems that just about everyday a new tool comes out that offers to pull the fabric of our self-made social web even tighter.  Some new tools on the block are Foursquare and Plancast.  Neither of which improve the quality of my network, but they are cool and fun, and I choose to try them out.  Now add these to Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, or whatever your social media weapon of choice, and there is some serious time spent in the name of connecting.

I am connected to the social web via TweetDeck.  I'm watching and participating in the conversations that I care about.  Does it add to my workload?  Definitely.  Do I like it?  No Doubt.  Is there value to my company?  Absolutely.  I think the debate stems from how "work-day" is being defined.

The view seems to be that of the old-school corporate time clock vs. workshifting.  One is focused on time and the other on outcome.  One is focused on the office and the other is location agnostic.

Therefore, if I'm focused on outcome and I'm location agnostic, does that equal a longer work-day?  No, it's equals a work-day that may include Monday morning at 4am or Sunday at 9pm.  It also may NOT include Tuesday at 9:30am and Friday at noon.  By re-framing perceptions of working hours and work space, you can quickly see that in most cases there are not more working hours, but the hours worked are more effective.  This also requires setting boundaries for when you're "on deck".  In other words, don't call me at home at 4am unless I'm expecting it.

By extending the definition of work-day to include workshifting, it opens up a world of possibilities on how to achieve an objective.  I can collaborate with social media tools, attend a conference or speaking engagement, have an online meeting and of course (at least in my case) go to the office for a dose of much needed corporate culture.  Despite how this post may read, I love going into the office because I need to connect in person.

So next time you read about how the evil social media tools are driving people to work 24 hours a day, stop and think.  The definition of work-day is growing up.  Are you growing along with it, or are you fighting for the status quo.

What say you?

Photo Credit: tranchis

There are thousands of books to choose from about what makes a successful entrepreneur; how to become a master at time management and so on.  Each of these books come with many nuggets of wisdom to be gleaned from them.  But as a workshifter, you probably just don't have the time to read all of these books, let alone put into place what you learn from them.

The fact is, solopreneurs are supreme jugglers, but even the most accomplished jugglers drop a ball at some point!
 
Over almost seven years of coaching people to run profitable businesses without running themselves ragged, the top five complaints I hear most often are:
 

1. "I feel overwhelmed and exhausted with too much to do and too little time."
2. "I know that I need to work ON the business, but I'm so busy working IN the business."
3. "I know what I need to do to grow this business, but there is never enough time to do it all."
4. "The business is doing ok, but it feels as if I can't quite make that leap to the next level."
5. "I feel like I'm just not planning my time effectively as I could.  I'm constantly fighting fires."
   

It's not hard to spot the pattern here - lack of time!  Solopreneurs tend to berate themselves for not having completed all of their gargantuan "to do" list at the end of each day.  But most of the time they have simply set themselves 12 hours of tasks to complete within a 6 hour day!  I know this because, while I'm superb at getting my clients focused and helping them to set up project plans to make their own businesses more efficient, I often forget to "take my own medicine"!
 
Solopreneurs are notoriously bad at setting themselves impossible targets and beating themselves up for not having achieved "the impossible".  The following tips are nothing new and you won't be bowled over with a magic formula for getting it all done.  There is no clever solution here, just time-tested stuff that you have no doubt heard before.  But whether they are old news or cutting edge to you, those who cultivate the following seven habits will find that they are more in control of their time, have less episodes of overwhelm and build sustainable businesses.

Seven Habits for Time Pressed Solopreneurs





Habit No. 1 - Learn to Prioritize


It is a truism that time is our most precious commodity and we just don't have enough of it. It's ironic that when you're doing something that you don't enjoy, the minutes seem to drag relentlessly.  On the other hand, when we are busy, time appears to fly and unless we grasp that time management is fundamentally about managing priorities rather than time, we are likely to feel overwhelmed.  

Professional coaching experts will tell you that time management is rule number one, but as we all know, time cannot be managed:  We each have 24 hours in the day, seven days in the week and no amount of wishing will give us that extra two hours a day!
 
Try this exercise for a week:  Evaluate all that you have to do for the week and take time to jot it all down in a list. You will need to allocate a priority to each activity and collate them into a realistic timetable. When you embark on this exercise,  it can seem daunting!  However, if you persevere, this can really pay dividends as you will start to grasp how you under-estimate and the importance of prioritization.   

Habit No. 2 - Don't Forget About You!



Remember to think about yourself.  Without rewarding yourself and enjoying valuable "me" time you will quickly burn yourself out and be far less productive.  The buck really does stop with you when you are self-employed.  Most solopreneurs are running micro-businesses where they are the chief bottle washer and cook!

So make personal time a priority and understand that this is not about being selfish, but is in fact a vital investment in your business and your life.

Habit No. 3 - Make Friends with a Little Routine in Your Life


Setting up a routine is one of the best habits you can practice. They say that it takes a minimum of 14 attempts at something before a habit becomes ingrained, and we all seem to work better if we adopt a routine.

While you might not like to be too structured, I would be surprised if you do not benefit from incorporating some routine into part of your daily business management.
 

Habit No. 4 - Block Out Time without Distractions


Don't let the myriad of communication methods become the enemy of efficiency.  You have to block out time when you can turn off not only your phone, but perhaps all those time-depleting social networking sites.  Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, IM... the list goes on and on.  All of these new social media tools can be great networking and business generation tools, but more often than not, they can be great excuses for not doing the stuff that brings in the business.
 
So make use of time blocking or "do not disturb" time to focus on larger projects.  You can then allocate time to return calls once you've completed the tasks and projects that are essential to grow your business.

Habit No. 5  - Create Sacred Space to Work


Habit number five is about creating your own special and protected area. Many solopreneurs  run a business from their home. If you are a work at home entrepreneur, don't try balancing a laptop on the kitchen table and putting your file cabinet in your bedroom!
 
Wherever it is in your home, make your workspace sacred and ideally place it in its own room, off-limits to the kids when you are working. Design this room with efficiency and ergonomics in mind and don't use it for leisure purposes. If possible, have another computer set up elsewhere for personal use.

Habit No. 6 - Healthy Body, Healthy Business


If you don't look after your health, all the other habits will be difficult to maintain. Exercise and fitness must become a habit and you should plan on getting at least three exercise sessions in per week.
 
Do whatever is easiest for you to take on as a new exercise habit.  So if you don't live near a gym, it's unrealistic to plan to go to a gym three times a week, as you'll find that you don't have the time to travel to and fro.   Keep it simple - walking, running, cycling or dancing in front of an exercise DVD are all examples of keeping your body moving that are easy to adopt into your life as a mum.  And do what you enjoy - if you're not a sporty person, it's unlikely that you'll stick to a new habit of playing tennis each week.  One of my clients who hates the gym and all form of sports exercises keeps trim with her Wii each evening. 

Think laterally and do what works for you!  It doesn't matter what form of exercise you choose, providing you just get your body moving!

Habit No. 7 - Build a Superstar Success Team



You've heard the expression "no man is an island"?  None of us can run a business alone and we all need support in various guises.  Ask yourself what sort of support you need to become a highly successful solopreneurs and start to look for ways of building your "superstar success team".

But however you choose to build your team, don't try to do everything on your own as there is so much to be gained from seeking the wisdom of good friends, confidants, associates and professional experts. They can be superb sounding posts and linchpins to your business success!

Having read these seven habits, it's likely that you will go away and forget most of them!   So,  rather than trying to adopt all seven at once, thus dooming yourself to failure, choose just one habit, focus on it and practice and practice it until it truly does indeed become a habit (i.e something you do without even thinking).  Then, once you have adopted one habit, choose a second and so on.   


Easy does it - and remember to acknowledge each little achievement along the way!

About the author:

Amanda Alexander is a Professional Certified Coach who helps work at home professionals who long for more hours in the day.  Through her coaching programs and online coaching courses, Amanda helps people to create fulfilling and successful businesses.  Learn  more at www.amandaalexander.com

Photo Credit: derekGavey
 

Connectedness is a tricky thing it can be both necessary and debilitating.  This week has been incredibly busy and  got me thinking about productivity.  When it come to 'getting things done' sometimes disconnecting takes precedence. 

If you can't view this video, you can find it over on my Vimeo channel.

Are there specific times during the day that you disconnect?

Many cubicle employees dream of being able to work from home, either for their current employer or through stretching out on their own as an entrepreneur - living the dream! In my own quest and through talking with other home bound warriors I have been thinking about some mental and psychological triggers and how that affects their performance and their growth.

Below are just some ideas around 5 Mental Workshifting Triggers that affect the way you work away from a traditional office.

Time Management

The first is a critical aspect to your success working from a non corporate office environment. How you spend your time dictates your success. Spend too much time on noncritical tasks and your paycheck, clients and output suffer. Spend too much time working on growing your business or working on tasks and you miss out of the benefits of location independent based working. There are plenty of sites and resources geared towards productivity.

This group includes:

To Do and Task Management - Remember the Milk, TaDa List, Prioritiz'd
Project Management - Bacecamp, Front Office Box
Life Hacking - Life Hacker, Zen Habits
Lifestyle Design - Four Hour Work Week, The Life Design Project, Rock Star Lifestyle Design Outsourcing - Source Control, eLance, Guru
Automation - TubeMogul, Ping.fm

Time management is something that many teach and few actually follow through. Personally I try one system every week only to play on Twitter and read RSS Feeds for hours and wake up and smell the deadlines. The best system I have found so far is the one that fits your goals and growth plans. Those that are ambitious and strive for excellence manage their time much differently than those with lackluster or passion driven goals (or those with no or undefined goals). Every person will manage their time differently from David Allen and the Getting Things Done system to the freelancer working a 9-5 and fitting in client projects with every waking minute, break and crack of free time in the day.

The end goal here is to find a system that fits within your values:

Step 1 - Define your values and goals.
Step 2 - Figure out what it will take to get there.
Step 3 - Manage your time to succeed.

Motivation

The second touch point is personal and professional motivation to perform the work. Seeing the body language and the amount of effort it takes to give and receive response, many home based workers have a tendency to be, for lack of a better synonym, lazy. Getting out of bed, putting on appropriate clothing and getting serious in your spare bedroom or makeshift office is a difficult task for many remote based workers.

How do we program ourselves to be motivated and excited to get out of bed 6 months, 12 months, 2 years after we begin working at home. The feeling you had the first week out of the office is now very distant and the same problems will begin to arise. Remember your first week on your own? Coffee was on at 6am, you ran a few miles before dawn and hopped out the shower with a crisp pair of jeans and even did your hair like you had a million dollar client meeting? Now it's 6 months down the road and the alarm snoozes till 8am. The run has turned into walking the dog to the "spot" and back and your basketball shorts and company picnic tee make your uniform look, well, you get the picture.

One of the keys to motivation is to always have something to be motivated about. If you are working from home just to get by, well, its going to be no different than mulling around in the office. If you started a company and became complacent with your clients and your income, well, then, get used to the groggy 8am wake up call. One piece of advice I got from John Jantsch (Duct Tape Marketing) is that we all need to be striving for the next thing. We all need to be treating our work like we are starting a business, the business of you. What I took from this is that we all need to be working towards "awesome" and whatever that is for you. For me it's a picture of an Audi R8 and some beach front property, right next to a picture of my wife. For me it's breaking free and living on my own terms and everyday I wake up, see these pictures, glance at my goals and get to work before the sun cracks the window.

Finding that motivation is going to be different for you and you will be inspired in different ways. The one thing I know if that we don't NEED Tony Robbins to whip us into shape, we need to find that fire deep down in ourselves and then seize the day!

Single Child Syndrome

One thing that many are not prepared for is the realization that you are working by yourself, in your home, alone. We attempt to supplement this with Twitter chat, Facebook and IM, but the fact is that human to human interaction is such a strong part of how we grow, learn and develop. Communication with people, like real, breathing people is something that helps me get through the day and can always give me a second to remember that no matter what business you are in its a people business.

Some cures for the single child syndrome can include conferences and events. The number one reason people go to large seminars and events is to meet people and learn things. They want to exchange cards, talk about their business and learn about yours. There are conferences and large scale events for every niche, every industry and every hobby on the planet. Some of the best networking for me has come from events where not everyone was a marketer. I've gone to food and restaurant trade shows and events to meet restaurant owners to talk Social Media and online marketing and as one of the only marketing agencies there I had some great conversations that were interesting and a great time that led to great relationships and ultimately business in the long run.

Possibly the newest form of live bodies in a room is the Tweetup. Get on Twitter, find some locals and find a place to hang out. Cheap, effective and very powerful for local community building. Other great sources of finding live bodies (aka not Twilight'ian vampires) Upcoming - Yahoo crowdsourced directory of goings-on in your neighborhood Eventful - Events based on location Mashable's Guide To Events.

Rotating Office Chairs

The 4th trigger is your ever changing office chair, and I don't mean the seasonal upgrade at Ikea (although that would make for a great Christmas gift if anyone is thinking of sending one my way). What I mean is the ever changing office settings from coffee shops to Panera's to makeshift home workstations to buses, planes and waiting places. When you were working in an office or going to school, you were prepared for the everyday consistency. You knew your seat, the time to be there, the people that would surround you and you basically had a routine. Now that your boss gave you some freedom or you made it on your own, your environment is no longer consistent. Even in your local coffee shop your table or chair may change, the traffic flow can fluctuate, new distractions come into play and your routine is now a routine of adjusting to your surroundings.

While you may be thinking that the freedom of choosing your workspace is awesome (and personally I think it is), there are certain time and space constraints that need to come into consideration. I for one, create a great deal of videos for my membership sites and filming screen casts are not going to happen at Panera. Other limitations can include download and upload speeds (even your home connection may not be as strong as those T1's at the old office).

The key here again to to determine your needs and evaluate locations in your hometown that match your goals and workload. For me it's a combination of working at home and in some local spots that allow me to be comfortable and get in the zone to write, record and manage my day-to-day activities. I also plan my days to fit the times at these local spots when I can best utilize their environment. For me its the post breakfast time. I find that arriving at 9am is a great time to get in some culture, then find quiet and hit the zone before the lunch rush. At home, its early mornings before my wife wakes up. I'd love to learn more about your limitations with your rotating office chair. (Share in the comments below)

Communication

The last major factor that I have been studying is the communication piece. I have found that in my companies and in many others this is still a major barrier to growth and stability. While the tools may be there, the lack of follow through and discipline inside of organizations is extremely disappointing. This can include email overhaul at the top of the list. A booking agent friend of mine sees over 200 emails from artists, other agencies, venues and major players every single day. This doesn't include the social media requests and general email. That is 200 emails that typically need a response and posiibly need it with time sensativity (a band en route needing directions or confirmation on a show time). This makes his business awfully difficult to manage even though he can work from anywhere at anytime.

Interestingly enough we live in an information society that can have answers to complex problems in a matter of seconds yet have payments sent to wrong addresses, sent to wrong people in the wrong format or miss the ball with time zones for scheduling. Communication is the number one reason businesses fail and succeed. From hiring new employees, freelancers or outsourcing - the ability to send clear and concise directions can be a major challenge. For work at home employes, being able to communicate virtually and maintain the level of activity can be very challenging out of the gate.

The best resources are only as good as the pilots using them. For my love of tools like RTM or Basecamp, if the orgization or individual fail to use them, the tools ultimately fail (or the user does, depends on whose eyes you are looking from). For many people and entrepreneurs in particular, the idea of communication while workshifting needs to be a top priority as the other elements we have talked about today fall into line if there is routine and efficient communication.

Conclusion

Today I really wanted to share some ideas and concepts that have been brewing in my head over the last few weeks. These are challenges in my own business and in businesses that I have the pleasure of learning about or working for. They all tend to be different for every business but the same in nature and the way you go about setting triggers and responses to combat the situations.

The main theme is surrounding your business and your work with actionable goals that continue to help you grow. Once you have these goals it becomes much easier to develop communication strategies, adapt to work environments, work with teams or by yourself, get motivated and manage your time. Let's talk in the comments below and see how you manage and work with these problems.

Photo by: David R. Carroll

Many years ago, in a galaxy far far away, I used to work in a Big Four firm.  This was probably the worst time in my life, but that's another post for another day.  The Big Four are a prestigious set of assurance & consulting firms that have a four-way lock on the Fortune 500 Assurance market.  The corporate culture in these firms is an atrocity. 

Beyond the conventional cut throat, cubicle farm ideologies so indicative of the typical corporate aura, the management of these firms exude an embarrassingly obtuse comprehension of productivity.  What is their logical misstep you ask?  They directly correlate Time Spent with Value Added.  In other words, some preppy, clean shaven kiss ass who gets can sit intently in front of his computer for 15 hours a day during busy season and without thought or analysis, his Time Spent is made synonymous with Value Added.

Our idea of Productivity matters.  The amount of hours you spend with your face glued to your laptop screen is NOT indicative of your productivity.  At the Big Four, the street smart kids quickly realized this poignant reality.  The firm billed out on the basis of hours booked.  They made their money on the amount of Time Spent, not on Value Added.  So during "busy season" you were going to be sitting in the same room for 15 hours a day whether you actually did anything or not.  It is a vicious cycle of misplaced value association.  Most of us would sit there, laptops churning, looking attentive, tippity tapping at our keys all day, all the while 30 - 40% of the day, we'd be just be surfin the interwebs.  Why did we do this?  To satiate "face time" , of course.  Even if you work twice as efficient as your co-workers, you can't be the one to leave early, take a two hour break midday to get a second wind, or bill out less than your colleagues because if you do, you can kiss your bonus and your reputation bye-bye.

Here's some simple math for you: Time Spent does not equal Value Added.  

Oh, so you work until 2am everyday.  Congratu-freaking-lations!  You've just won a shiny gold watch.  Do you think that makes you productive? No. No, it doesn't.  In fact, it probably means you cannot manage time effectively and you spend a great deal of hours doing things at half speed because you're tired or busted.

Here's some difficult math for you: Value Added equals X

That's right, instead of taking your ques from Henry Ford and Ronald McDonald, you need to spend some time (and I mean serious time) figuring out what exactly would constitute adding value for your organization, team, small business or solo practice on a yearly, monthly, weekly and daily basis.  

Looking at time spent on things is the easy way out.  It's the Least Common Denominator and that's not you.  Or at least it shouldn't be.

If you manage staff, treat them like people and not like well paid cattle.  People are smart.  If your staff feels like they are being branded and evaluated based on the hours they sink into projects rather than the value they add, they'll give you exactly what you are asking for ... "empty calorie" hours.  You don't want that.  You want dense hours.  If your people are going to sit down to work, you want them to be as productive as possible while they do that, so they can enjoy their lives and not return tomorrow disgruntled and miserable, ruing the day of your conception.

Over the past year, we have hired four staff.  Want to know the first thing I said to all of them?  "I don't give a damn how many hours you work".  We sit down and collaboratively define what their role is and how value would be measured and use that as our barometer.

Honestly, its one of the reasons I heart workshifting. A "Value Added" paradigm is built into it.

How do you define productivity?  How do you value your staff's productivity?

Photo by: Menage a Moi

The nice thing about being a workshifter is you only have to work half days--the question is, which 12 hours.

It's odd that so many employers worry about their remote employees goofing off, instead of just focusing on results, when, in fact, everyone I talk to has opposite problem--overworking and turning it off at the end of the day.

I read an interesting study on Saturday--yeah, Saturday, the day most people are out having fun. The study, conducted by WorldatWork and The Future of Work, was about how the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) makes it hard for managers to allow hourly wage employees to workshift. Introduced in 1939, the FSLA was enacted in an effort to, among other things, keep employers from underpaying and overworking employees. In the context of workshifting, the problem is that the Act requires managers to monitor their hourly worker's schedules. Did they take their break at 10 a.m.? Did they work overtime? What about those "after hours" Crackberry messages, emails, etc. They all count toward the workday.

So as I sat here on Sunday, yeah, Sunday--the day of rest, thinking about what to write for this blog, I wondered who's watching out for me. Certainly not my boss. She's the kind of slave driver that inspired the FLSA to begin with. She has me working 10 hour days. "Just finish one more email" she whispers to me at 8 p.m. And I don't remember any time-and-a-half in my paycheck. Heck, I don't even remember a paycheck.

I've interviewed dozens of workshifters with a similar stories. One guy told me it got so bad that he finally resorted to leaving his home office, driving around the block, and returning home to mark the end of his day.  

Any thoughts out there for how you turn it off?

Photo by: Dhaval Shah