Should You Go Freelance

Should You Go Freelance On paper, the freelance lifestyle is perfect. You have the ultimate freedom from office location and working hours, to clients and projects. There are no bosses or holiday restrictions, and childcare is no longer a problem. However, the reality of freelancing can be quite different. For some people, too much freedom can turn into a curse freelancing requires a deceptive amount of discipline and regimen. There are a number of factors to consider before ditching the 9 to 5, from financial security to evaluating your skill set. Work-life Balance Many regular employees bemoan their work-life balance. However, for freelancers, the office door never truly closes. The lines between work and play can easily become blurred, particularly if you choose to work from home. Workaholics may find it difficult to switch off from their projects, and fully enjoy the evenings and weekends. On the other hand, a lack of motivation can soon lead to disaster freelancers simply can’t afford to miss a deadline. If you have to work from home, converting a shed or garage into a separate office space can help you to achieve some distance. If this is impractical, try to keep your work space in a spare room. Avoid working in your bedroom or living room at all costs this set-up completely removes the work-life barrier, ultimately leading to anxiety and stress. Learning New Skills Freelancers typically have one or two areas of major expertise such as graphic design or writing which they use for client work. However, freelancing also involves a whole host of ‘hidden’ skills, many of which are likely to be unfamiliar. Accounting is perhaps the most important of these skills. No longer guided by an expert HR department, freelancers must learn how to run an effective budget, invoice clients, and file tax returns. However, freelancers must also master other areas such as marketing, advertising, project management, and client negotiation. Loss of Protection Although restrictive in terms of hours and holiday, a salaried position provides a certain level of financial security. Without a regular payslip, freelancers are often forced to deal with stressful cash and workflow issues alone. Organisations like the Freelancer’s Union can provide some support and advice, but on the whole you will be handling difficult situations by yourself. New and experienced freelancers alike are occasionally overambitious, taking on too many projects at once. In this case, it is possible although frustrating to pass work on to another freelancer. However, other situations can prove more difficult to resolve. For example, if a client refuses to pay, the ensuing costly legal battle could take months to reach a conclusion. Consider your Cash Flow Cash flow is often a significant problem for freelancers, particularly in the early days. Regular work can never be guaranteed, so you’ll need to build a financial safety net for slow periods. Ideally, you should be able to cover your rent payments for six months although this is impossible for many people. Before handing in your notice at the office, you must decide on your rates, and calculate how much work you’ll actually need to do in order to pay the bills. You may need to purchase new equipment before setting out on your freelance journey. Be honest when assessing the suitability of your current resources working with unreliable tools can rapidly destroy productivity. It’s also worth bearing your health and travel habits in mind before taking the plunge as a freelancer, you will no longer have access to sick pay or holiday allowances. Loneliness Office politics can be exhausting, and many people find themselves longing for a quiet space to work in. However, all but the most introverted of people can find the freelance lifestyle a little too quiet. Unless other family members also work from home, you could soon find yourself alone for ten hours a day. If you find yourself struggling to work without company, help is at hand. Take action, and join a local co-working organisation. Freelancing is often seen as the perfect career choice for parents of young children. In theory, the freelance lifestyle combines unlimited free childcare with a steady income. However, this is a rose-tinted view of the profession. Many people find it impossible to concentrate on work when their children are around, and freelancing parents often resort to paid childcare for a few days a week. Working as a freelancer can be both challenging and demanding. An irregular income, teamed with difficult clients, can lead to extreme levels of stress. However, the potential rewards are great freelancers are blessed with ultimate flexibility. As with all career decisions, it’s important to thoroughly research and plan before taking the plunge. Author: This post was written by Simon Markland. Simon is the director of VOOVit, providers of international shipping and excess baggage services. RELATED:  How to Transition from Corporate to Freelance

Can Treats In The Office Create A Positive Working Environment

Can Treats In The Office Create A Positive Working Environment The office is sometimes a place where people are working so hard, they forget about the sweet things that are out there. However, whilst the office can be stressful at times, there are a few instances where the entire office can have fun and relax (and we’re not just talking about office parties!) In an article posted on the Wall Street Journal, it was stated that some people think that setting bowls of sweets and treats “builds espirt de corps” in the workplace and lifts up the morale of the entire team. These simple sweets are treated as small comforts that create a positive environment around the office. One employee at an LA medical center said, “Food is always comforting. It helps with the camaraderie in the department.” Treats are inviting Aside from building camaraderie, bringing treats to the office also allows you to be known by your co-workers. You can build friendship and close relationships with your fellow employees, simply by sharing small treats like candies and cakes. In a poll published in The Daily Mail, a quarter of the respondents admitted to baking sweet treats to make friends at the office. As the old saying goes, sharing is caring, and sharing small treats shows that you care about the people that you’re working with. Bringing in treats that you’ve made opens doors for you to get to know your co-workers, and sharing recipes can create an environment where people are keen to work together to get the job done quicker and more effectively. Share More, Do More When you arrive at work with treats that you’ve made, you’re also showing your bosses that you can do more than just crunching numbers and simply getting the job done. Although some might view it as a way to suck up to your superiors, bringing in baked treats only proves that you are more capable than what your job entails. Having extra knowledge in baking and cooking can go a long way in the office environment. Kate Moore, a baking expert from UK sugar brand Whitmore points out that more employees are embracing baking and bringing goods in the workplace. “Baking is a great way to bring a bit of light relief into the workplace and, of course, to identify the most competitive colleagues!” she said. Treats = Happiness Sweet treats not only injects your workmates with the boost of sugar that they need, some treats like chocolates and strawberries are known to create a euphoric sensation for those who consume it. The scientists at the Neuro-sciences Institute in California claims that chocolates can “heighten sensitivity and produce euphoria,” making it a great way to make everybody at work happier. Strawberries give people a rich dose of Vitamin C that helps produce natural endorphins in the body. Another ingredient that makes people happier is peanut butter. The creamy spread which goes well with cookies and other desserts is considered as a “good fat” due to the abundance of monounsaturated fat that’s found in it. Cooking for your co-workers can make the office a positive working environment  and fun  place for everyone around you. For more information about treats that you can prepare for the office, look for recipes online.

7 Ways to Improve Productivity in Your Office

7 Ways to Improve Productivity in Your Office The word “office” doesn’t usually inspire visions of a beautiful place and, as many know, working in one can get stagnant and boring. Being indoors under artificial lights for 8+ hours a day can be draining, and well, downright depressing. Research has even confirmed this, with studies showing that people subjected to artificial light for a set period of time showed a decreased quality of sleep, amount of sleep and even in some cases created daytime dysfunction. So what can you do to help improve this, whether just an employee wanting to improve your own space or the owner looking to renovate/design a friendlier and more productive office space? Here’s a few tips to help you out: 1. Natural light Try to incorporate natural light into the office space. Of course not everyone can have large glass windows and, in some cases, large offices will have areas that aren’t even near a window. If this is the case look at making one room (lunch room or just a quiet area) a sanctuary with natural lighting where employees can go to relax, away from the flickering fluorescent lights many offices use. If you’re an employee, look at going outside for lunch or just make a note to walk around every few hours for 5 minutes to refresh and recoup, which is also good if, like me, you stare at a computer for hours on end. 2. Maintain 22 °C Studies have shown that people work best when the temperature is within a range of 22 °C 25 °C. They also showed that below these temps there were more office errors, but as the temperature was increased to 22 °C errors dropped by 44% and typing output increased by a massive 150%, showing that a small thing like regulating your office temperatures can play a significant role in productivity. RELATED:  How to Troubleshoot  Productivity 3. Neutral colours Try to use neutral colours were possible. Many experts believe that colours play an important role in shaping a persons mood. Grey/White/Neutral colours breed a cool, open, relaxed atmosphere. If you want some colour go for Yellow which will help produce a bright, creative environment which would work well for a Design Company etc…, or Green helps will communication, balance, being social. Try a Blue colour for a relaxation room/ lunch area which helps promote peace, honesty, kindness. Try to avoid Red whenever possible as although it helps with vitality/energy it also produces a bold, independent feeling which could cause conflicts in an office space. If you don’t have the luxury to renovate or you’re just an employee look at adding some pictures/art with these colours into your office space, I personally have a beautiful landscape picture of the Yorkshire dales adding greens and blues creating something tranquil to look at during my busy day. This can also mean you’re addin g a personal touch, helping to create a more comfortable area to spend your working day in. 4. Nature = nurture Add some plants to your office. It’s been long established that plants can help reduce stress in the workplace, so go green and add some plants to help productivity in the office. Plus this can also improve air quality, help regulate humidity (I felt my old office had a dry and almost suffocating air quality before introducing a plant) as humans prefer a humidity factor of between 30-60%, and some well-placed greenery can even help to reduce noise levels (For me phone calls, typing, general chatter really annoys me and distracts my thought process). 5. Ambient sound Many offices are now being created with the idea of open plan work areas which helps employees feel connected but this can also produce noise factors which can lead to distractions, which further lead to reduced productivity. Many offices have the radio on to help drown out the sound that one can generate. This can help by allowing people to concentrate on an ambient sound over the general noise, but be careful as not every ones taste in music is the same and choosing the right station can also be a key factor otherwise for some the music could just add to the distractions. I personally bring my own music to work, but of course this isn’t applicable to all working situations. One solution could be introducing a quiet room, were people can work in a peaceful environment away from the general office distractions. 6. Keep healthy Take away the sweets and go for healthier options like fruit, nuts etc… when that belly starts rumbling. Studies have shown that people who snack on sugary treats have a lull in their productivity in the afternoon compared to non-snackers (Yes I know that’s not a word) which is due to the fluctuations in your blood sugar levels. If you really can’t live without something sweet, then try things like grapes, which are a great source of natural sugars. 7. Keep tidy Maintain the office, keep things tidy and organised. Keep your desk free of clutter, make essential things handy to get by organising what goes were, this will then create a more pleasant working atmosphere for yourself. Also don’t get annoyed by others who don’t keep organised, not everyone is the same (I’m terrible at maintaining a tidy desk but I stay 5 minutes at the end of the day to make sure I organise and clean it, and it definitely helps me get started the next morning), so if you do see a colleague that always has a messy desk, help them out to better organise and get them started on the right path. This will improve their productivity and help the general office ambience. Finally don’t be afraid to put your own feeling and creativity into either your office space or if you are renovating/designing a new office space putting in unique ideas. This can come from including a bizarre logo placement like at the Google office in London, or creating an unusual office seating arrangement (the Office Greenhouse in Riga, Latvia has a unique design) and using wacky materials (Amsterdam company BrandBase with their pallet office) which visiting clients will see creating talking points once they have left, helping to further generate exposure for your company. I love to see the wonderful way people have taken the ordinary office concept and turned it into their own individual space, take the Selgas Cano architecture office for example, a perfect combination of the principles for office harmony. This to me helps promote the company, create a positive working environment which helps increase productivity. If you can unite everyone in the common cause to produce top products for your clients, and if you consider the basic points I’ve highlighted in this blog I’m sure you will have a happy, productive workforce. Author: Liam Coleman is Joint Managing Director at Blue Octopus Recruitment, an honest online recruitment company with a difference. From Yorkshire and proud.

Stop! How NOT to Begin Your Resume

Stop! How NOT to Begin Your Resume Well begun is half-done. But far too many resumes begin with objective statements that can only be described as half-baked. As a professional resume writer, I review and analyze nearly 2,000 resumes every year. And in the vast majority of cases, almost every job seeker could use a better opening objective. To show you what I mean, here are three example objectives from actual resumes sent to me for analysis. (My comments are in parentheses.) Each resume got off to a horrible start as a result of these objectionable objectives. Objective 1 To obtain a responsible (as opposed to irresponsible?) and challenging (what, you dont like dull work?) position where my education and work experience will have valuable application (instead of a worthless one?) Objective 2 To contribute professionalism and experience to a challenging position offering ample skill utilization and growth opportunities. (This is just plain gobbledygook, and could describe any job on earth, really.) Objective 3 Seeking a challenging career with a progressive organization which will utilize my skills, abilities and education in management, product management, operations, purchasing and buying (Sorry, I gave up halfway through. Chances are, employers reading that sleep-inducing sentence will, too.) OK. So much for how not to start your resume. You can stand out from the crowd if youll just start your from the employers point of view, instead of your own. And use everyday language as you write. Sounds simple, doesnt it? It is. When writing your objective, make sure it answers this question: Whats in it for me? Thats the question on every employers mind as he or she reads your resume. Heres an example objective, to get you started: OBJECTIVE Management position in procurement where over 10 years of experience will add value to operations. Avoid such trite phrases as: seeking a chance for advancement, where my skills will be utilized, or where I can further my career. Ive seen each of these on resumes that were badly hampered as a result. So, to keep your objective from being objectionable (and torpedoing your job search), put the focus where it belongs on the employer and their needs. And dont try to impress readers with your vocabulary. Write the way you would talk to your manager during a meeting. To see if youve succeeded, read your objective out loud. Best of luck to you! Related: 5 Old-School Sections You Ought to Remove from Your Resume. Image: Shutterstock

Mindfulness These 7 Resources Will Help Your Career

Mindfulness These 7 Resources Will Help Your Career A healthy level of stress happens when we stretch to achieve a task or goal within our capability and it energizes us. Unhealthy stress is when we are no longer in control of how we feel and it affects our performance negatively.Getting the balance right means taking responsibility for yourself and howyou do things. This post looks at common work situations where your response-ability might be tested and how mindfulness practices help reduce unhealthy stress.Do these scenarios ring any bells for you?You’ve been overworked for a while. Small, seemingly trivial incidents tip you over the edge regularly and you blow up with people. You are angry.evalYour colleague keeps taking time off work that impacts on the workload of the rest of the team. It’s not how you would do things. You are irritated.You provide clients with reports by agreed deadlines. Then you don’t get any feedback despite repeated attempts to get a response. You are frustrated.Your annual performance review is due. You can’t stop thinking about all the potential criticisms you might face. You are fearful.A colleague gets to go to an important conference yet again. They always seem to get the nod over you. You are jealous.You become obsessed with wanting that promotion or that role. You must have it.You have no social life. Work interferes negatively with family life. You can’t sleep. Your team complains you have no time for them. You are in pain.Response-ability, in a more productive and positive way,involves weakening the grip of these tyrannical thoughts and letting go. How can you do that?You can build patience and resilience by adopting consistently mindfulness and meditation.Daniel Goleman is an emotional intelligence expert who explains how the two relate to each other:“Mindfulness refers to that move where you notice your mind wandered. With mindfulness, you monitor whatever goes on within the mind. Meditation means the whole class of ways to train attention, mindfulness among the m”.evalLiving in the present is very much to do with attention. Common states of attention include:Scattered â€" when your attention is scattered with interruptions, unfinished tasks, and distractions.Captured â€" when your attention is captured by focusing obsessively on an idea or task, oblivious to the world around you and unable to respond to emerging needs.Centered â€" when your attention is focused on a single task, but productive and efficient because you are in a state of ‘flow’.Open â€" when your attention is wide and receptive to what is happening in the moment, pausing to rest and watch the world go by, a state full of potential.Here are 7 resources to help you master inner control in your job and career:What Mindfulness Is and Isn’tHow Successful People Stay Calm7 Ways Meditation Can Change Actually Change The BrainHow to Meditate Anywhere AnytimeIncrease Your Mental Clarity in Just 15 MinutesMulti-Tasking Damages Your Brain and Career10 Time-Tracking AppsManage your emotions so you deploy your best self productively for job and career fulfillment. Make mindfulness a habit through regular practice and notice the difference in your job and career.

Book review What should I do with my life - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Book review What should I do with my life - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Good question, huh? What exactly should you do with your life? Where is that one job that will make your life eternally happy and remove all doubt about whether youve made the right choice? Well, Po Bronson has talked to a lot of people who have faced that very question, and he has some good news and some bad news for us in this book. The bad news is that there doesnt really seem to be an escape from the doubt. One common thread running through all the stories is, that nobody seemed to unquestioningly accept wherever they were at right now as their final destination. The book opens with the story of Za Rinpoche, who got a letter from the Dalai Lama when he was 17, explaining that he was the reincarnation of a who, along with his five brothers, had ruled a poor and remote region of Tibet six lifetimes ago. There you go: Your place in the scheme of all things, straight from the Dalai Lama. He studied for twelve years, and is now 32 and lives in the US. And even he is not free of doubt. So what hope is there for the rest of us? Will we ever find this one spot meant for us, where everything makes sense? The book contains story after story of people who have faced the question in widely different ways. From the New York investment banker who became a catfish farmer in the South to the spokesman for an Oil company who quit because of their unethical business methods, and went to the opposition a government agency monitoring oil companies. And the stories are presented very matter of factly, with few value judgements. Po does let his own opinions of peoples choices shine through, but he never condemns them. He shows a deep understanding of the circumstances that lead people to their decisions even the bad decisions. In this way, the book offers very little specific advice. You might say, that it offers no help for us to find out what we should do with our lives, but that would be wrong in my opinion. Reading the stories, shows us some of the situations that other people have faced, and how theyve handled them. And theres real inspiration in that. I was moved by many of the stories, and found myself cheering the people on, hoping for them to make the right choices. And this is the true magic of this book. Po Bronson went a lot further than just interviewing the people in the book he entered their lives. As he puts it, he slept on their couches, went to parties and weddings, dined with their families, and in this way got close to them. This openness is also apparent in the way he shares his own story, which is equally inspirational: How he walked away from a 300.000$ a year job offer, to pursue a highly uncertain carreer as a writer. Remember, this was before hed had anything published. The one piece of actual advice in the book concerns the lockbox fantasy. This is the idea, that when faced with a choice between pursuing a normal job or some crazy dream, you can always take the job for a while, putting the dream in a lockbox, save up some money, and then return to the dream later. Po bronson writes, that out of all the people he talked to, nobody had ever been able to take this route. The people whod promised themselves to return to the dream later never did. But heres the good news, to offset the bad: Many people do have the courage to pursue their dream or ideal. Many of the people who decide not to take that mediocre job, but to wait for the right thing, do find it. Others make what they currently have, the right thing. This book is an easy, enjoyable read. The stories are all fairly short, and all of them are interesting. The idea for the book is wonderfully simple and beautifully realized. There is no doubt, that Po Bronson has a gift for this sort of project. Read it! Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related

Federal Resume Writing Service Reviews - How to Get Unlimited Resumes Through Reddit

Federal Resume Writing Service Reviews - How to Get Unlimited Resumes Through RedditDid you know that you can take advantage of the website called reddit to get you an unlimited number of resumes in your inbox. The websites are designed to let you have a lot of conversations with people on these websites, and through this you will be able to find out things that you didn't know before. One of these things that you can find out is about how to use a federal resume writing service to get a job that you want.These websites are so popular because they allow you to browse all the subreddits of these websites. This means that you will be able to see what types of topics are going on in the forums. Because this happens in subreddits, there is no limit on how many times you will be able to find articles about the services that you are looking for.Remember that you are only going to be able to save up to ten articles, and you will be able to put them into categories. For example, if you are l ooking for government jobs, you can save up all the topics about jobs in the government for that purpose. You should only put up ten articles, because the last thing you want to do is to waste too much time searching through the hundreds of resumes that you found online.Before you start using a federal resume writing service, you should make sure that you are going to be able to contact them through email. You should also make sure that they have a chat option on their website. In this way, you will be able to get a hold of them anytime you need to talk to them. Since you are doing all this to get an unlimited amount of resumes, you should be able to speak to them easily.A lot of resume services offer resume tips. However, it is important to remember that the best tip that you should follow is the most basic one. This is to use their resume tips on submitting your resume and not to edit your resume to make it perfect. By doing this, you will be able to have more resumes in your inbo x, and you will be able to save up more information about government jobs for you to apply for.If you are going to be able to find more information about how to use a specific service, you should look for other forums that they were a part of. These forums will be filled with different topics where they discuss different topics about applying for jobs in government. You will be able to find tons of topics on this topic, and you will be able to learn a lot about the various things that they are talking about. As you read through the topics, you will be able to learn the things that you need to know about the things that you want to apply for.In addition to doing research on the internet, you should be able to find out if a resume writing service can help you when you visit the website. If you can see that they are going to be able to help you out with getting your resume written and edited for you, you should consider them for using. Remember that these services should be able to ans wer all of your questions as long as you are prepared, so you should do your research first before you contact them.You can find out everything that you want to know about a federal resume writing service by checking out the subreddit that they belong to. Try to look for topics that are related to getting your resume created and edited for you, and this will allow you to get more resumes from a resume writing service.