Motivation Through Words

(Repost)

Words are food. Words are fuel. Words are dreams come to life.

Words keep us going. They motivate us.

When you’re feeling down, or you’ve hit writer’s block, follow the advice of your favorite writer.

When you’re concerned you can’t make a deadline for a writing project, break your main goal into small, little goals. Just write for five minutes, or finish a paragraph. Tiny steps get you through the day.

When you’re hungry for ideas, look around you for inspiration. Read a book. Watch a movie. Talk to people. Watch a plant grow.

And when you finish writing your book, your blog post, or your report…applaud yourself. Writing doesn’t have to be perfect the first time.

Just write.

5 Reasons to Hate Remote Work

If you’ve been following these blog posts, you know I’m a strong advocate of remote work, but it’s not a perfect lifestyle. Like any work situation, there are days when remote work is irritating or totally stressful. So for the moment, at least, let’s look at five reasons to hate remote work.

1 Getting locked out of the office

The number one reason to hate remote work is a complete percent reliance on the internet. When your internet is down, it’s like getting locked out of the office and being left in the hallway with nothing to do, especially if your work files are saved on a cloud. You can’t ask the IT person to fix your tech issues – if you work from home, you are the tech person. Tech issues can also make meetings miserable. Your screen can freeze if the internet is slow and you miss out on what someone has just said. Your mic can stop working and you’re speed-typing your thoughts in the group chat. Bad tech = a crappy work day.

2  Communication issues and isolation

Remote work is like being locked in a room by yourself. You can’t just wander over to your coworker’s desk for a quick chat. You need to schedule or request a meeting, or message your coworker. In addition, direct messaging creates modern-day office paranoia. Say you just sent a message but your coworker doesn’t reply right away. Are they ignoring you? If hours pass, are they out-of-office or still ignoring you? 

A whole social aspect of working in an office is missing, such as a festival or special food day. It’s a treat to report to the company cafeteria to celebrate (insert occasion) with (insert special food). If you work from home and want a special lunch, you need to make it yourself (which isn’t as special).

3 Office furniture and office

You live where you work, especially if you work in your kitchen. You get the furniture yourself, and pay for it or expense it, but it’s done on your own time, unlike at an office, where you ask and a desk or chair is delivered free to you. It’s the same with stationery. You can’t just raid the supply cupboard. You build up the supply yourself. If the room is too hot or too cold, you’ve got to fix it yourself.

4 Dealing with misconceptions

Remote work and work from home allows you more flexibility in your schedule, which is a great benefit. However, people who don’t work from home have misconceptions. Relatives assume that since I’m “home,” it’s okay to interrupt me to have a social conversation or ask if I can run an errand. At a party, a stranger assumed that since I worked from home and I could “work whenever I wanted,” I worked the bare minimum hours. He said that when I realized I had bills to pay, I would start working more hours like regular people. 

5 Legal and long-lasting implications

When you work remotely, you communicate with coworkers online through emails or texts. You can’t walk over to your coworker or pick up the phone to chat. In these work set-ups, you join a huddle or have a virtual chat for longer conversations. You send texts for shorter conversations, meaning your communication has a record. You must carefully word your message in case the wrong tone is inferred. Emojis help to show you’re joking or add politeness to a request. But if you’re angry, you need to take a moment and think about what you’ll say because after you calm down, you can’t take your words back.

Key Takeaways

Remote work is not for everyone. People who love to socialize may find remote work very isolating. Similarly, people who love collaboration or need a mentor may dislike remote work. Technology can also create frustrations, and some think remote workers don’t work as hard. On the upside, if you enjoy remote work, then you know that these frustrations can be overcome.

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Would you work outside or inside?

When it’s sunny and warm out, would you rather be outside or inside? 

It’s summer and I’ve seen photos of people sitting in lounge chairs next to the pool, relaxing while typing on their laptops. It looks fun, but I don’t think I could do it. I would be one of those people who would flip my laptop onto the concrete floor while reaching for my ice-cold drink.

It’s nice to have a change of scenery if you’re like me and you work indoors at a desk. I was at the park, enjoying the view, when I noticed how much time was put into the care of the flowers and how evenly spaced they were (because that’s what you notice if you’re a copyeditor and you’re always checking the organization of sentences). 

I searched for brides in the garden since it was a sunny day and it was a popular photo spot. A day like this is wonderful for photographers. Colorful flowers, photo spots, and weather that’s warm but slightly overcast so your subjects aren’t squinting in pictures.

This weather is perfect for gardeners. Sunny and dry. I’ve seen gardeners working outdoors in the pouring rain, mowing the soaked grass, or using a leafblower to push damp leaves. I would never do any yardwork in the rain, but it’s different when it’s your job. When it’s a warm and sunny day, it’s good to be outside.

What would you do when the weather is nice out?

5 Reasons to Love Remote Work

Remote work has made it possible to work anywhere, anytime. This work setup is perfect for those who enjoy a flexible work schedule, instead of a rigid 9 to 5 with a set lunch break. You have fewer distractions and you can work when you’re most alert. These aren’t the only reasons to love working from home. Here are five reasons to love working remotely.

1 Seeing a different side of your coworkers

You see a whole different side of your coworkers that you wouldn’t if you worked in a traditional office. These virtual meetings can be a great conversation starter with coworkers: What are those books on their bookshelf? How long have they had a cat? Why are there apples in a box for peaches? You also catch some awkward moments, such as talking to your coworker when her arm shoots out to block her husband in his shorts before he walks past the webcam. (True story.) You learn to carry on with the meeting like it’s business as usual.

2 Increasing your productivity

Assuming you have an optimal work situation at home, without family members or roommates to distract you at inopportune moments, working from home increases your productivity. You won’t have coworkers wandering past your cubicle to have an unexpected conversation about something you’re not interested in when you’re focused on a task. Instead, conversations with coworkers are scheduled as virtual meetings with set start and end times. During breaks, you can take a few minutes to throw a load of laundry in the wash or vacuum the floor while you brainstorm project ideas.

3 Maximizing your time and schedule

Your commute time is just a few minutes, so you’re maximizing your billable hours at work. Compare this schedule to a one-and-a-half-hour, one-way commute to work without pay. Remote work situations may also offer flexible schedules so you can leave work to pick up your kids from school or work on a Saturday so you can go to a medical appointment on a Wednesday morning.  

4 Relaxing your dress code

Working from home will save you money on clothes. If you don’t have a meeting that day, you can wear whatever you like, including mismatched clothes or clothes to lounge around the house. You don’t need to plan a business casual outfit or put on your makeup. However, you might dress up for one-to-one meetings or company meetings. Even for an on-screen company meeting, you only need to worry about your appearance from the waist up. (So a crisp shirt with jogging pants and slippers is totally fine.)

5 Choosing your office location 

Your remote work office is wherever you want it to be as long as you have a stable internet connection and can concentrate on your work. It can be a home office, kitchen table, corner at a coffee shop, table in your garden, or a hotel room while you’re on a business trip. 

Key Takeaways 

Remote work offers many advantages compared to working in person at an office. Five reasons to love remote working include seeing a personal side of your coworkers, decreasing your distractions so you get more accomplished, having a schedule that works for you and your coworkers, a comfortable dress code, and more options for your desk location. Remote work is a trend that started when technology made it possible and will continue for as long as people enjoy the work-from-home lifestyle.

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How Often Do You Say Hello?

Some random trivia I came across today: the song “Hello My Baby” was meant to poke fun at some trendy slang from the time. That new word was “Hello.” Alexander Graham Bell suggested “Ahoy!” as the proper way to answer this new invention called the telephone. Instead, people were taught that “hello” was the proper way to answer the phone. The song (shown below) made fun of how people sounded when answering phones was still a new phenomenon. How far we’ve come since then! Hello is now just a regular part of the English language.