Helping Others Make Money Online

Organising business meetings when you work from home can be a bit tricky as I discovered yesterday when I had a visit from a customer. They sent a four man team and the meeting went on for about four hours. When you work from home, as I do, space could be a bit limited. For instance I make use of a small office where I undertake most of my tasks, It is just big enough for one person and a computer so I am able to undertake my online jobs. But when arranging meetings the room is much too small and doesn’t have suitable seating.

Fortunately I possess a good sized dining room. It’s a room which is solely used for formal dining, when we have people over for instance. So pressing it into service it for very occasional business meetings is no problem. I wouldn’t want to work from home all the time from a dining room as I would need to pack away all my office stuff on a regular basis, however for a meeting it turned out to be great. The solitary snag was that I needed to shift my computer from my study to the dining room. Luckily, my broadband connection is wireless, so the fact that there is no telephone port in the dining room was no big deal.

In fact the whole setup looked quite professional, somewhat like a boardroom, used only for special visitors. It did however illuminate one shortcoming, my computer screen is only 17 inches. That is perfect for most work from home tasks done from my desktop. But for display in meetings it’s far too small. So before my next meeting I intend to get a bigger screen. I might get a separate additional screen, which I can keep tucked away in the dining room ready for use, or I might go for a brand new computer like an Apple Mac with a 27 inch screen built in.

Assigning Work from home space for a new business or career may be quite difficult, particularly when your home is a busy one used by lots of family members. However, if you own a more mature property it might be blessed with a cellar accommodation which is not at present in use|being used|occupied[/spin]. This space could well easily be brought into service to provide all the space you require to work from home effectively.

There are though , some potential issues to bear in mind. Damp can be a problem with rooms below ground and this can affect your health and comfort if you intend to work from home for extended periods of time. The solution to moisture can be expensive and usually involves tanking the walls.

A lack of daylight could well also cause problems. Although not a health hazard it can feel quite depressing to have to operate in an environment where the only light is artificial and lacking views from a window. In fact a shortage of natural light can often be helpful, especially if your work from home involves Online jobs or other computer based activities. You ought to assess your own reaction to this in advance of spending money on converting the basement, try working for a day or two in a room with curtains drawn to see how you cope.

A final issue is ventilation. Your basement will not be difficult to keep warm and is unlikely to become over warm during a hot summer. But it may not be easy to ventilate as you will not be able simply to throw open a window. Be aware that having a constant flow of fresh air is crucial to your productivity, trying to work in stale air is debilitating and will spoil your work from home experience. Be sure you can bring fresh air in. If need be consider fitting a proper ventilation system with a quiet fan and ducting to the outside world. With some careful planning this can easily be organised on a DIY basis.

When I began to work from home nine months ago I unsurprisingly found a massive decrease in the amount of distance I was doing. In fact, as much of my work involves Online jobs, I rarely have to drive and I have found that often many days elapse during which the car is completely unused. Next week the car lease is up and I am giving serious thought to my travel requirements over the coming weeks whilst I continue to work from home.

The majority of car lease arrangements assume a fixed annual distance, often it is 10,000. If you don’t complete 10,000 miles in the year then you must still pay the regular monthly lease cost and there is normally no reduction. If you Work from home full time as I do then you may find that your annual mileage is somewhat less than 10,000 so a lease arrangement of this type will be costly.

For this reason I am probably not going to continue to lease a car. My other choices are to buy one outright. But this doesn’t attract because it will use up a considerable amount of capital. What’s more, my partner owns a car which is perfect for social and domestic use , so I am giving consideration to not owning a car at all and renting one if and when needed.

Looking over my work from home diary I assess that in the last six months I could have got away with car rental on nine individual days. Researching daily car rental costs I reckon I can rent a suitable car for around £30 per day, meaning my total six months transport cost will be no more than £300 in total. In addition I could push the boat out and rent something bigger and better if I wanted.

So that is now how I expect to organise my driving for as long as I continue to work from home.