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Work from Home Tips to Help You Get Stuff Done

August 13, 2017 By Jennifer Evanko Leave a Comment

When you own your own business, or otherwise work from home, it is sometimes difficult to stay on task. There’s always something in the house to do, someone to feed or a television to watch. I am certainly good at procrastination and distraction. You can just look at my blog title (Flighty and Creative) and know that. But I have some tricks that help me concentrate and focus on my list of tasks.

Work from home tips to improve focus

We have owned a business for almost ten years, but were working at other jobs until about six years ago. Now we run our businesses (there are now three) from home as well as attend graduate school full time, and take care of our menagerie of crazy animals.

Get ready for work.

Get up in the morning and get ready like you’re going to work. This is actually one I don’t always follow, but I get a lot more done when I do. You don’t have to dress up, but at least look presentable. It helps put you in the right mindset for work. Plus, if you do have to go somewhere unexpectedly, you’re ready and don’t have to get ready to go.

Set small goals for each day.

Make a list of things you need to accomplish the next day, and then check them off as you complete them. When there are a million things to do, it’s easier to remember the most important or urgent ones you must do first. It also breaks up the overwhelmingly large list into small bite-sized pieces.

Minimize distractions.

I’ve found that if I leave the television off in the morning, it doesn’t distract me at all. But if I turn it on in the morning, forget the day. Something will distract me and I’ll sit down for just a few minutes (which never only lasts a few minutes). But the television is not the only distraction.

I don’t have kids, so I can’t tell you how to minimize that particular distraction. However, I do have a husband who likes to pop in and say, “Hey do you want to go to (insert fun work-avoiding place here) with me right quick?” Again, right quick is never right quick. It’s a day wasted. I also have three dogs and two cats who seem to want to go out and come back in or be fed right when I am on a roll or knee deep in a project. I try to let them out or feed them and get them settled before I start a task.

Music helps me concentrate.

This may not work for everyone, but if I put my headphones in and listen to music, I tend to zone out from the rest of the world and am completely focused on what I’m working on. For some reason it doesn’t work to turn on the stereo. It only works with headphones. I guess I’m weird like that.

Schedule time for work and for fun.

Set a time that you will go to work, and one that work will end. Schedule time to do things with your family. When you work from home it’s tempting to just keep working past normal working hours, especially when you own your own business. There’s always so much to do, and you may be the only one who will do it. But you can’t do it all without taking some time for yourself and scheduling some time for your family. You won’t be good to you, to the family or to the business.

Contact me with your favorite work from home tips or just leave them in the comments.

Check out my Pinterest boards for lots of great pins!

Time Management Tips for Fitting Graduate School into Your Schedule

August 13, 2017 By Jennifer Evanko Leave a Comment

Are you considering going back to graduate school? Do you have an already busy schedule? Go for it. You CAN do it, especially with a few time management tips and tricks.

Are we crazy? Probably. But these time management tips have helped.

After we left the life of an active duty Army family, we moved our house, pets, and business all the way across Texas (about eleven hours away) and started our new adventure. In the middle of growing our new farm, remodeling our house and establishing our business in this new place, we both went back to school full time. In the last three years, George and I have both completed our Bachelors Degrees, and MBAs. We are in our last class for an MS in Business Analytics for each of us. I’m also finishing up an MS in Management and an MS in Finance. Four masters degrees is a bit of overkill, I must admit, but there’s so much I want to learn. None of these can hurt us in our business.

So how did we do it? Hell if I know. (Just kidding). Seriously, there are a few common sense tips that can help.

Tip #1: Write everything down.

At the beginning of each semester, I go through all my classes and build a spreadsheet with every assignment, test and due date for every class. Then I sort them all by date and make it easy to read. Once each item is done, I highlight it in green. I love having lots of green on my spreadsheet. And actually since both my husband and I are full time students, I add his classes to the spreadsheet as well. This way we can both check it and remind each other that a due date is looming. And we can check it before scheduling work or life activities that will conflict.

Tip #2: Buy your books on Kindle whenever possible.

This might not seem like it fits in a list of time management tips, but stick with me and I’ll explain. When you need to research topics, or look up something quickly, the e-book is much faster. Also, online classes frequently have open book tests. It’s much faster to go directly to the information that you need in an e-book format and can help you finish your tests within the time limit. And a bonus is that you don’t have to carry heavy books. The Kindle version is usually cheaper to buy or rent. And if you rent, you don’t have to return the e-book. It is automatically deleted off of your device when your time is finished. That’s another time saver.

Tip #3: Wall calendars are awesome.

In addition to the spreadsheet, a large wall calendar is helpful to put in important due dates, schedule study time, and integrate your work and life events onto the schedule. Color coding helps as well. We have a great chalkboard calendar that has been great (and it’s pretty too). Click here for a link to one on Amazon that is similar to the one we have, only better because it is magnetic. I forget where we bought ours, but it’s not magnetic.

Tip #4: Don’t binge watch TV shows during the semester – in other words, prioritize.

This seems like common sense, but I’m an expert procrastinator. I know from experience that binge watching every season of VEEP will put you far behind in your homework. Homework first. Game of Thrones will still be there between semesters. I promise.

Tip #5: Read assignment requirements thoroughly and carefully as soon as you get them.

I have dropped a couple of classes whose assignment writing requirements were not something I could (or was willing to) do within the short time allotted. Most were short summer classes with many multiple-page written research assignments and were at a time when I had a very busy non-school schedule. Make sure you can meet the requirements, or don’t take the class. It is better to change to a different class than receive a low grade. When the class is a requirement for your degree, be sure to plan for the amount of time you need to complete it.

And here’s a bonus tip that is not related to time management. Find a friend who is good at editing to check over your papers. There will be a lot of writing in graduate school, and another set of eyes can help ensure your papers are the best they can be.

I hope these time management tips are helpful. Contact me or post in the comments if you have more great time management tips for going back to school.

6 Tips We Learned When Remodeling our Kitchen

August 13, 2017 By Jennifer Evanko Leave a Comment

We inherited my grandmother’s small house, and it subsequently had a large addition added on to it before we actually took possession 20+ years later. That’s a long boring story that we can just skip. Anyway, once we finally were ready to move “back home” and into our house, it needed a lot of work. And we have done a lot of work. In this post, I’ll focus on the kitchen, though the remodeling project included more than just the kitchen. I do have some tips to share that we learned along the way.

Tip #1: Remodeling costs more than you think.

We planned for some extras that we really wanted, and did our homework before we started so we’d have a good idea of how much it would cost. That sentence makes me laugh now because we truly had no idea. I won’t tell you (honestly I don’t know) how much we went over our original budget. However, you don’t have to go over budget if you’re disciplined and plan better than we did. Lots better. Infinitely better. We did spend less on a few things than we planned for, but that didn’t make up for the areas where we spent more. Not even close.

Tip #2: You can have the items you really want if you are willing to look for deals and do your homework.

I was insistent that I wanted a 60″ Viking professional range. That was non-negotiable. So in our little spreadsheet, we budgeted the cost of a new one. I found one on eBay (yikes!) for less than half of the new price. Yes, I said eBay. It was used. It weighed over 800 lbs and had to be shipped from California to Texas. And it had to be converted from natural gas to propane. That was a hard purchase for me to make because I was afraid that the transaction would not turn out well. The seller kept us informed every step of the way and we received it from the freight company. But then we had to wait several months with it sitting in the garage because the room wasn’t ready for it. But it works well, and we love it. It was one of the best purchases we made.

Tip #3: Adding propane to an all electric house may not cost prohibitive, but it’s damn close.

See that stove up there? It is not electric. There was no gas in this house, propane or otherwise. Everything was electric and I hate cooking on an electric stove. Hate it. HATE it. Well, the original builder of this house (my uncle) told me that adding propane would be cost prohibitive. He said this with a chuckle that said, “Oh you are an idiot.” Well, we did it, but it is one of the things that seriously contributed to our going over budget. We had to dig trenches, that required a tractor implement that George had to buy (what a tragedy). And yes, I’m probably an idiot. That’s okay, because I now have my Viking gas range.

Tip #4: Removing load-bearing walls is possible, but it ain’t cheap.

This is another subject that amused my uncle, the builder. I’m sure he thought, “I have contributing to raising a complete moron.” He made it clear that this too was an unreasonable expectation. Well, we removed two load-bearing walls in the course of remodeling. The ceiling hasn’t collapsed. But we had a friend who owns a company with extensive knowledge and experience in this area. Thankfully, they were available and willing to take on the job.

Tip #5: You need nugget ice (AKA Sonic ice) in your kitchen. You just do.

A Scotsman nugget ice maker was on my list of must haves. But they are spendy (I am aware that’s not a proper word). Well refer back to tip #2. Keep looking. I managed to find a brand new one someone had bought and returned because it didn’t fit in their kitchen for about half the price. It works perfectly and we use it constantly. Ice cubes? No thanks!

Tip #6: Remodeling will take longer than expected.

We started this remodel in January of 2015. It’s now August of 2017. We are not quite finished, though we just completed the last big project. At least until we think of something else. We have lots of touch-ups and finishing work to do, but the big stuff is done – for now. Part of the reason it took so long is because it went so over budget. But you know, now that it’s all coming together, it doesn’t seem like it has been that bad. And remember we were doing much more than just the kitchen. More posts about everything else will be added soon, as well as some before and after pictures.

Many, many of the ideas that went into our remodel came from Pinterest, and I pinned most of them. Check out my boards by clicking here, and you can find those ideas and many more.

Contact me here if you want to share more tips.