Musings from an overworked translator

Top 10 rules for working from home September 17, 2008

In these days of high gas prices and rising living expenses in general, telecommuting is a hot topic. Many people aspire to work from home, which offers you the freedom to tailor your hours around childcare and cut out unnecessary travel and clothing expenses, office distractions and the need to work 9-5. We translators are ahead of the game, so to speak. Here are my top 10 rules for working from home.

1. Set office hours and stick to them.

The beauty of working from home is you can work whenever it suits you, but it is easy to drift away and do other things – or just the opposite, work the whole day. Decide on a set schedule and stick with it. Keep a log if you have to. You might want to kick-start your day by taking a walk around the block or scheduling a shower at 9 a.m. and then getting to work.

2. Get dressed.

It is hard to feel efficient when talking to a potential customer in your pajamas. I’m not advocating wearing a blouse and a skirt or a suit and tie, but at least lose the pajamas. My favorite organizational guru, FlyLady, insists that you should always “get dressed to lace up shoes” when you first get up in the morning. This means fix your hair and face too. According to FlyLady, “you act different when you have clothes and shoes on.” As for why the shoes should be laced, “putting shoes on your feet that lace up are better than slip-ons or sandals, because they are harder to take off. Instead of kicking your shoes off for a quick snooze on the couch, you actually have to go to a bit more trouble.”

3. Avoid the television during your office hours.

I know this seems like a given, but I have heard from several colleagues who had trouble managing their time in the beginning because they were watching their soaps instead of sending out resumes to potential clients. It is so easy to get sucked into a television program and put off your work – especially if you do not have a looming deadline. Keep the TV off during your office hours or be very regimented about turning it off after a scheduled break. I love Law and Order marathons as much as the next person, but I don’t watch them if I have a looming deadline.

4. Create a separate office space.

Ideally this is a separate room, with a door you can shut at the end of your office hours. If you haven’t got enough space, think carefully about where you want to work. Keeping a computer in the corner of your bedroom is not a good idea. Bedrooms should be a place to unwind and relax – not have a constant reminder that you can quickly check your e-mail. If you have to, partition a space off in the living room or dining room with a screen.

4. Plan your day.

Make a to-do list and do things in order of importance. Keep up with your e-mail. Answer e-mail as soon as you can before it becomes overwhelming. Make the difficult calls when you are starting your day, because putting them off and dreading them can sap your energy all day.

5. Have a clutter-free desk.

Think of your desk as a place of action. At the end of each day, put everything away and update your job board. I love starting each day with a clear desk. Keep the minimum of essential items such as pens and a few stationery supplies on your desk. Try and work on one project at a time so you can keep focused.

6. Don’t let post-its clutter up your desk.

If you have too many post-its you will start ignoring them. Keep a notebook or log to record phone calls on rather than post-its and scraps of paper.

7. File stuff away as soon as you can.

Invest in a filing cabinet and personalize your filing system. Also, does it really need to be in alphabetical order? Why not file the items chronologically at the front of a folder? I have four files for each business year and file invoices, bank statements, pay stubs, bills, etc. in chronological order. More on this another day.

8. Turn off the lights and close the office door at the end of the day.

It is so easy to keep the computer on and check the e-mail before you go to bed. One of my colleagues does not answer her phone outside her business hours, which she clearly states on her answering machine message. It isn’t healthy to be accessible 24/7. Our customers don’t usually work 24/7, so they shouldn’t expect you to.

9. Communicate your boundaries with your customers.

If you get up at 5 a.m. so you are available to take your kids to school or are a night owl, let your customers know. My customers know I do not get in the office until 10 a.m. because I work best later in the day. I also avoid working with customers who don’t respect boundaries. Unless they have a valid reason for doing so and are in a life-and-death emergency situation, if an agency calls me at 3 a.m., 8 p.m. on a Friday night or even Sunday night (these examples have all happened to me at one time or another) I cross them off my mental list of customers. If the customer’s expectations are unrealistic tell them and explain why.

10. Be sure you get some “me time.”

Take weekends or a couple days during the week off. Schedule time to exercise. Get a monthly massage. Take a walk in the park a couple days a week. Down time is so important.

If you follow these 10 simple rules you will find working from home to be more enjoyable and rewarding than it would be otherwise. Give it a try and see for yourself. Did I miss something? Tell me in the comments!

Watch your back – what is YOUR back-up system? September 15, 2008

Cleveland got hit with the remnants of Ike yesterday. We had sustained winds of 40 mph and gusts of 50-60 mph for several hours, some rain, and lots of downed trees and power lines. The lights flickered a couple times here, so I decided to turn off my computer and settle in with a good book. Before I did, I e-mailed the translation I was working on to my Gmail account – just in case I needed to go somewhere else to access and work on it today, because it is due at EOB.

Luckily I didn’t lose power, but 336,000 people in the Cleveland area did. It got me to thinking about back-up systems. I used to back up on a zip drive back in Germany. Now I have an external hard drive. I have it set to automatically back up my files at midnight every night, because I usually have my computer on but am watching TV. Unfortunately it hasn’t worked in about a year. I tried to update the driver and reinstall it recently when I had some down time, but the thing is just an expensive paperweight at the moment. I need to buy a new one, and I think this week will finally be the time I do it.

It is also really important to keep a copy of your important files off-site in case of a power outage, flood, fire, etc. I know this and yet I rarely do it.  Jost Zetzsche, who writes the biweekly newsletter for translators called The Tool Kit (if you don’t subscribe, I highly recommend you do – lots of good information about translation tools and other issues!), mentioned once that he stores his external hard drive in his car. As I said before, my off-site back-up system consists solely of me mailing files to my Gmail account. I used this more when I was teaching at Kent State and would e-mail the PowerPoint presentation and files I needed that day just in case my zip drive didn’t work. There are plenty of off-site file storage sites out there like RSync or Global Datavault (just to name the first two hits on Google), but there are so many it is hard to choose. Plus, most of them cater to big companies and not one-man operations. If you can recommend any that don’t cost an arm and a leg, I would love to hear about them!