Category: Work from home

Why Are iPads So Useful?

Technology I Prefer

I originally wrote about this on my Medium site last year BUT it is still relevant today. I thought it would be interesting to share my opinion about iPads here on my main blog and encourage you to comment your own experiences with them. I hope that by the end of this you will know why iPads are so useful, or at least will have been persuaded that they have many positive attributes.

I cannot live without my iPad.

Well, maybe that was a slight exaggeration. Perhaps it should be more a case of:

I’d rather not live without an iPad.

Why not a laptop?

Laptops are so cumbersome and, in my experience, much more unreliable. I have to use a laptop for my job and it is forever freezing or losing work as I am half way through editing it. My friends find similar problems, with laptops that are relatively new as well as older ones.

With a laptop I am forever trying to find a plug socket as one minute it is saying 50% charged and then the next it’s flashing to warn me to charge it immediately. Maybe it is just me but I don’t think so.

Also laptops are fairly big and you need a good case to carry them around in. You can’t really use them wherever you want. Ideally they need a surface to sit on and you cannot just lay down with them on the sofa (not comfortably anyway).

IPads are better because…

– They are compact (mine is 12.9 inches long – big enough to watch a movie) which means they are light and easy to pick up with one hand.

– Waterproof. I am no expert but I have spilled drink on mine and got it wet in the rain before and a quick wipe down has returned it to normal again.

– You can slip them into a folding keyboard. The iPad case easily converts into a holder which means that you can use them like a keyboard, resting the iPad on any surface, or even on your knees.

– They rarely freeze and allow you to open multiple apps at a time. I can flick between a website, the Medium app and Unsplash very quickly and easily as I write.

– The video quality is very good. You can watch any streaming service on it in bed as well as enjoying Youtube and Tiktok videos readily. The camera is also very reliable and provides clear images for both photos and videos.

– There is a fair amount of storage within the device and you can always save your content to the cloud.

– The kindle app and Apple books app are great ways to consume fiction and always remember where you got up to in a book.

In A Nutshell

As a writer and reader, I spend a lot of time reading blogs, watching videos and editing texts. For me, the iPad Pro is my number one choice for most activities and I take it on holidays with me so I can keep up with the online world when I am away. I absolutely love it and most of my books and blogs are written on it. Please let me know what you think about iPads in the comments.

If you use Medium, check out my site and the original article about iPads. You may even want some ideas for what to watch on your device. Here are Two TV Shows Worth Watching.

How To Boost Your Income – 5 More Ideas

Finances are at the top of most people’s agendas at the moment as energy prices rise and a war in Eastern Europe makes some products less available. It feels like we should be celebrating as Covid takes a back seat for a while, but suddenly our pockets are being emptied faster than we can fill them.

After my recent post about Side Hustle Suggestions, I was interested to read more about this subject and can see that so many people are in the same boat as me, trying to make ends meet. A lot of my friends ask me how to keep astride of finances and my simple answer always has to be ‘work harder and save like mad’. Passive incomes are great but they take time to build up. In the short term, the only real fix is to take on extra work.

So let me share with you five more possible ways to make a little extra income to help pay those horrible bills. I have tried to suggest work which anyone can access. Let me know what you think of my suggestions in the comments below.

5 More Side Hustles

1) Flexible deliveries

It is a fairly obvious fact that most people rely on deliveries these days. From all kinds of household products to fast food, we are becoming more used to using delivery firms to meet our daily needs. Many of these companies pay a fair wage to deliver at anti-social times, such as in the evening.

Some companies are keen to promote flexible working and will pay a little extra for delivery drivers who work at night. For example, Uber Eats, Just Eat and Deliveroo will enable you to earn a bit extra when you feel you have the time and energy. Some firms allow their customers to give tips too, which is a brilliant bonus.

2) Offer a room on Air BNB

Make a room available for short stay tenants. Having a room available for a guest can be a nice little revenue generator. You can choose when is a good time to make the room available and there are always people looking for somewhere to affordably stay. Every guest will provide a boost and you can withdraw your offer at any time or for an extended period.

3) Do paid surveys

Some people make a good income from completing paid surveys. You just need to look around online for websites that provide surveys that you can be compensated for.

I often use ‘Slicethepie.com’ which has loads of opportunities but it can take a while to build up enough funds to withdraw. If you have half an hour spare each day, you can soon become efficient at it and build up your trust rating, so as to earn more per survey.

I enjoy the bonus surveys that they offer and often make 20 cents for a quick music survey. This usually entails listening to one minute of a track and rating it, as well as writing a paragraph about it. It probably takes me three minutes max.

4) Sell products online

There are so many apps available which enable you to trade in old ‘stuff’ lying around your house. I use eBay to get rid of things I no longer want and always find it easy to use, with postage prices added to each item so you never lose out when going through the selling process.

You can take this one step further by making craft items which can then be sold either on eBay or directly through your own website or on Facebook marketplace. I do find that eBay has a quick turnover though, so you must make sure you get products posted out quickly, or customers complain and ask for part refunds.

5) Make an audio recording

I recently discovered the Amazon ACX service where you can sell your vocals to writers and publishers looking for people to read their audiobooks aloud. All you need to do is leave samples of your voice work and apply to be the reader for any books that take your fancy.

There are two ways to make money from this. Either you request a flat fee for the audio or wait for a share of the commission. I believe you can also ask for a smaller upfront payment and a share of commission as well.

Summary

I hope that you found some of my suggestions useful. Not everybody has time to go out and deliver goods but there should be an idea for everyone amongst my five fresh side hustle ideas. You can find even more useful ideas in this article about Making money while you sleep.

Personally, I have done so many different jobs over the years and have learned that you just have to do whatever is needed to keep the money flowing. Right now I am building up my blog, selling items on eBay and doing surveys.

Thank you for taking the time to read my article about boosting your income by taking on extra work. If you enjoyed this post, please consider following my blog for future similar content.

How To Be More Productive

One of the things that I have become good at over time is being efficient with my work time. In all of my jobs I have always been slightly against the clock and it has made me very aware of how quickly time flies and keen to use it wisely. In this day and age, there are so many distractions in life, and especially at work, but it makes a lot of sense to use work time well in order to make time for the fun stuff.

In this blog article I am going to explore exactly how you can make much better use of your time by being a bit more organised. If you are anything like me, you will want those dreary jobs out of the way as soon as possible in order to have some more relaxing time and space. I intend to suggest some productivity hacks to make it easier to achieve this.

Keep an eye on the time and keep moving forward with the tasks you are given.

Where does the time go?

Lately, I have been observing other people working and noticing a few things that slow them down. Whether it is working from home or being swept up in a busy workplace, distractions are everywhere and frequently make simple tasks take a lot longer than they should.

Here are a few things that slow productivity at work:

1) When getting into a specific task, noticing a new email pop up and then indulging in opening it and getting sucked into its content. This results in a period of time being used away from the main task and leads to different tangents that reduce overall efficiency. Productivity levels fall when this kind of thing happens at work.

2) Walking to perform a task and getting sidetracked by a colleague on the way, by stopping for a chat. This is one of those everyday things that causes productivity and time management to diminish.

3) Taking a personal phone call while at work.

4) Deflecting a task, in preference for an easier job. This makes the less popular task drag on and can complicate things if it delays other processes or people end up chasing you for it to be done. Sometimes deflected jobs also get forgotten, causing all sorts of complications later on.

5) Not planning your day properly OR not sticking to your plan.

I could go on and on but will stop there. I am sure that you can think of many other ways in which work tasks can also be delayed or skipped due to distractions. Feel free to mention other examples in the comments below this post.

So, what can we do to keep up our productivity at work? How will we make simple adjustments that improve our efficiency and get things done quicker?

Here are my suggestions for being more productive:

Try and keep to the agenda. Don’t allow off-task conversations to take over your online meetings.

1) Have a simple plan to follow throughout the day. Include some periods of catch-up. If you work from home, pencil in a ‘fake’ meeting to your online timetable, to prevent people from disturbing you for an hour, allowing you to get everything in order.

2) Turn your personal phone off until a dedicated break time. One of my friends was saying that she was alarmed by a news update at work and it stressed her out. When I asked how she knew, she said it had popped up on the phone and she was tempted to read it and then got distracted by it. Turning it off will stop notifications, others calling you and text messages lurking on the screen that may demand your attention.

3) As much as possible, have everything that you need with you so you are ready to go and don’t need to spend part of your day retrieving or searching for things. Nothing is more frustrating and time consuming that being ready to do a task and finding that you are unprepared due to missing something that you need.

4) If someone tries to sidetrack you with a conversation as you make your way to and from the photocopier, ask them to join you and hold that chat next to the copier. Or simply, politely inform them that you are very busy and would love to catch up at lunchtime. Remember – quite simply, some people spend their day trying to get out of being productive. Don’t be one of them.

5) When holding a meeting, be it face-to-face or online, remind everyone politely that there is an agenda and simply stick to it. Recently I overheard a zoom meeting where the first person speaking had a new cat and everyone cooed over it for the next ten minutes or so, delaying the start of the actual meeting.

I love a good chat! However, meetings can drag on and run over if you allow chitchat and off-task discussions. I know that I sound harsh but keeping the pace is important, especially when maintaining a productive mindset. I do wonder how many millions of hours of online meetings are wasted with general gossip and chat which is nothing to do with the meeting focus.

Summary

I hope that you have found these simple observations and suggestions useful. I know it can seem insensitive to keep the pace going when you are at work and others want a chat, but I have learned that doing so means getting tasks completed on time. This then leaves plenty of free time after work to socialise and means not having to work late to catch up on errands.

Thank you for taking the time to read my productivity hacks blog post today. Please check Boost Your Income – Side Hustle Suggestions for ideas of how to make extra income in the time you will have saved by being more efficient. Please also consider following my blog for similar future content.