Paula Sageser Designs and Projects

Category: remote work tips

  • Side Hustles

    Side Hustles

    I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking about ways to earn some extra money right now. I’ve seen a few people working on some side hustles to get them by and pivoting their businesses. In fact, a post by WebinarNinja gave me some inspiration to update my resources page. I recommend favorite tools and services by adding options to my affiliate recommendations on my business site. I’m not willing to turn my site into a wasteland of ad banners like many of the bloggers I know have done in order to monetize their content. Those ad blocks make me twitchy. Times like these call for a little out of the box thinking and creativity. Creativity…

    Bring on Adobe’s Design to Print

    I got a little bit punchy last week while the stress levels ramped up, and I started to experiment with a new option in Photoshop that integrates with Zazzle. I started up a Zazzle store and turned some of my favorite puppy pictures into t-shirt and mug designs. I don’t expect to get rich, but maybe I’ll earn a buck or two from my family and friends. I learned a new tool, created something that made me smile, and stopped brooding about the economy for a few hours.

    Added Service Ideas

    Next on my list of out of the box thinking was what I could do to drum up some business or bring on some additional projects. I started thinking about the tools and services that I use for my own business, and how I might employ those on behalf of paying customers. Rather than mope, I wrote and I created. I blogged about my UpDraft Plus cloned website service which is something I do for existing clients, but could do as a standalone service. I also updated my Square Appointments site to make it easier for people to sign up for new services. I now have a way to sign up and pay for a WordPress security review and tuneup. Prevention is really important and there are millions of sites at risk within the past month alone from vulnerabilities.

    Selling knowledge/courses/content is a big deal these days. For some people these are side hustles, but for others it is how they’ve built their entire business. You can ask people to become members and pay for access to exclusive content, which is especially important in our current remote world. To easily lock your content behind a membership site with several payment methods, I’ve got a great deal for setting up WishList Member for WordPress sites.

    side hustles like email newsletters from MailPoet

    Today, thanks to AppSumo, I have added another tool to my arsenal. One of the biggest complaints I get from my clients (and see for myself when I fill out forms and never hear back from a business), is that website forms end up in a black hole somewhere. Not the spam folder (although a lot of them do end up there), but lost in hosting limbo. This is especially frustrating for people who use WooCommerce on their websites, or have booking plugins and other registration or contact forms. Enter MailPoet, a plugin and delivery service that is designed to solve email form limbo. I’ll be testing this service for how well it delivers, how it prevents bot spam, and what the delivered emails look like. Once I’m sure it delivers on promised inbox rates, I’ll add it as another service offering.

    Bit by bit, those “side hustles” can add up. At the very least, I’m DOING something with my stress that could pay off in the long run. Feel free to reach out if you want to learn more or do something like this for yourself. Hope > Giving Up…

  • Working From Home (sort of?)

    Working From Home (sort of?)

    I’ve been working from home for at least 14 (wow really?!) years now, and I’ve gotten into a routine with it. When my hubby was between jobs, that routine was completely disrupted. Suddenly I had someone in the room with me playing computer games, sitting in a robe, and reminding me of life outside of work. It was distracting. I get it, a lot of you who are new to this working-from-home thing are struggling. How can those of us doing it for so long even like it? How do we get anything done?! Let me tell you, for the past many days, we haven’t been either.

    I want normalcy in the midst of chaos, and for me that is being productive and getting work done during working hours. Suddenly, I’m in a situation where major clients and projects have been put on hold and I’m worried about buying basic normal things from the grocery store, not for lack of money yet, but because normal things aren’t there. Throw in an early morning earthquake shake up call this week, and my focus is wrecked. I am going to talk about a few tips for making it easier to work from home, but first I want to say that I give myself (and you should give yourself), permission to be distracted, to not get work done, to accept that productivity requires a state of mind that allows me to focus, and that just isn’t my state of mind this week.

    Okay, so on to my recommendations for those of you who are new to this. First, REVEL in the freedom from the daily commute. I know that some of you have turned that into a time to learn, listen to music, listen to podcasts, and turn up the music really loudly to decompress after your work day. If you have, kudos, do all of those things at the beginning and end of your day, without the stress of traffic. This is your reward for giving up the office life. Eat breakfast and do a morning routine before you start your work. Sit in your car and turn up the music really loudly (don’t run the engine!) if your day has been stressful. The added distraction of kids at home is pretty much a guarantee that you’re going to need some serious head-banging tunes, or the zen of smooth jazz, whatever your jam is.

    Second, keep normal working hours. If your office job was 8-5, with a few breaks and a lunch break, then your home office job is 8-5 too. Don’t think that you’ll just make up work during the evening, or on the weekend, because suddenly you CAN. Unless you like the feeling that you are always working, I recommend not blurring the lines as much as possible. Keep boundaries in place between being on the job and being at home chilling. If you want to do laundry, start a load during your lunch break.

    Third, give yourself reasons to dress in regular work clothes. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t enjoy the sweatpants and t-shirts and slippers options you have now, but if you have a meeting, put on meeting appropriate clothes. It helps keep you in a more professional mindset and feel normal. In my early days of working from home, I put on work clothes. Now that this is my new normal, I don’t need that as much as I did, but early on it helped me create boundaries between work and home when I could change into comfy clothes at the end of my working hours.

    Fourth, set up a space in your home that will be your new office. Don’t just work from the kitchen table, then the couch, then your bed, your backyard, etc. Sure, it can be a nice perk to work from anywhere, but when you do that, you might start to feel like you are always working, and it will be harder to focus and tune out distractions. If you have the space in your house to set up a room to work from, I recommend doing it. Go to that room to work, then leave work behind in that room when you want to be home.

    Boundaries, that is what helps me be productive and not feel like I’m always working. I need to figure out how I can set boundaries between being distracted by the chaos of the world and all of the added little worries that are nibbling at me now. But not today, today I’m going to skitter around and TRY to get some work done, but recognize that my mind is still reeling. We’re all distracted, and stressed out, and unfocused, and that’s okay. The ripples of chaos will settle, the aftershocks will stop, and we’ll adapt and hopefully thrive.

    I love this post by WebinarNinja that has some similar tips, but is a lot more fun than mine and has a great download. Work From Home Without Losing Your Sh*t: Guide + Download