#helpfultools

4 Strategies To Help Reduce Anxiety

Anxiety can be a blessing and a curse. It can either push you forward or become so debilitating, to the point where you’re stuck in pit of negative emotions. This in turn becomes a cycle of thoughts that induce panic, fear, and worry.

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults in the United States age 18 and older, every year. Yet, only 36.9% of…

In recent years there has been an increase in home based employees and I am among the masses who now call their home their office. I am self employed but whether you work for yourself or an established employer you are likely to face obstacles similar to those that I encountered. Early on as my business was first established I made a few mistakes and fell into the common pitfalls of working from home. I have since learned to overcome those obstacles and I would like to share my tips for working effectively from home with you.

Setting up a functional workspace is critical to the success from a work from home employee. Try setting up your space so that it contains all of the necessary equipment that you need. You may decorate your workspace so that it is aesthetically appealing but try to keep distractions to a minimum.

Establishing a working schedule is also important. Having regularly scheduled hours when you work will help you to be more efficient during these times. Be sure to schedule work time as well as break times so that you will not become overwhelmed. One of the pitfalls that some work from home employees fall into is working too many hours. In an office there is a clear signal to the end of the day as other employees start to leave the office for the day but at home employees sometimes have difficulty ending their day.

Being able to motivate yourself is critical for the work at home employee. In an office situation, you have a supervisor and co-workers who motivate you to complete your work but when you are working at home, you only have yourself to push you to succeed.

Maintaining a professional attitude is also important for the work from home employee. If you have frequent client interactions, be careful to answer the phone or respond to their emails in a professional way. A home office may be an informal environment that affords you the luxury of dressing casually but client interactions should always follow certain decorum. Keeping your interactions businesslike will ensure that the client does not begin to doubt the amount or quality of work that is being put into their projects.

Considering hiring a day care provider is another tip for working from home. Those who have young children may find it difficult to attend to the needs of their children while fulfilling their job obligations. For this reason it may be worthwhile to have a day care provider care for your child during your working hours.

Avoid volunteering for too many activities. Many people will assume that because you work at home you are free to help them run errands, pick up their children from school or be an emergency babysitter if their child has a cold. While you may want to help your friends and family members, it is important to make it clear that your work is just as important as theirs and that you have obligations to take care of each day.

Easybm..... http://www.easybm.com   This is a free site that is completely free and will save you tons of time.  With Easybm you can put all of the links to the sites you visit for advertising, promoting, learning, etc. in one place and organize them into categories.  You can add notes that will show up when you hover over the link with your mouse so if for instance there is a forum you visit often, you can note your username/password. 

JotForm... http://www.jotform.com   Also free, you can create your forms here and save them.  Set them up to send you a notification and info when someone completes your form.  Forms can be used on your blog, your website, etc. 

Tinycc .... http://tiny.cc/   Here you can shorten any long url and save it.  Then you can track your traffic!  Tinycc is really handy for twitter as the long urls simply are hard to fit into twitter along with a message.  Plus as the url created by tinycc does not show exactly what the link is... you will get more clicks because people want to find out what it is!

Yola ... http://www.yola.com/  Create a free website or capture page!  Now, Yola does offer some paid versions as well but using the free one is a no brainer! 

YouTube... http://www.youtube.com   Everyone is familiar with youtube and for good reason it is actually one of the top three places people go to search out information!  Use it to upload your own videos and use it to learn.  You can search for almost anything and find a video about it on youtube.

Ehow.... http://www.ehow.com   Stumped about how to create a blog?  Stumped about anything?  Ehow probably has a few answers for you!  You can search for articles or videos that will walk you through just about anything!

Skype.. http://www.skype.com   If you don't have Skype.. why not?  Seriously, everyone should have skype!  I consider this a MUST HAVE.  You can visit by phone or chat, you can have group chats, group calls, etc. with Skype and you can do so with people all over the world.  You can instantly send files via skype as well.

MailChimp... http://www.mailchimp.com   With mailchimp you can create newsletters, emails, etc. to go out to your team or your prospects.  You can create a subscribe form as well and place it on your blog.

There are so many sites out there that don't cost a penny to advertise with, use them to your advantage...you know the saying "a penny saved is a penny earned!". Feel free to add to this list if you have found some that aren't listed.

Sites to post your links:

http://www.freeadvertisingforum.com

http://www.moneymakergroup.com/forums.html

http://www.dreamteammoney.com/

http://www.talkgold.com/forum/index.php

http://www.m

oneyfanclub.com/

http://www.work-at-home-forum.com/

http://

www.wahm.com/forum

http://freeadvertisingzone.com/

http://www.internetmarketingforums.net/

http://www.freeadsplanet.com/

http://www.whydowork.com/forums/

http://www.rolclub.com/index.php

http://www.youngentrepreneur.com/forum/

http://www.clicknewz.com/members/

http://www.onlineopening.com/

http://mothersworkathome.com/momsboards/

http://www.bizymoms.com/forums/index.php

http://www.homepartyplannetwork.com/boards/

http://www.workathomenetwork.com/forum.html

http://www.aardvarkbusiness.net/chat/

http://ablakeforum.com/index.php

http://forums.internetbusiness.co.uk/

http://www.friendsinbusiness.com/board1/

http://captsmarketing.proboards.com/index.cgi?

http://www.homebusinessonline.com/community/forum/

http://www.freeadvertz.com/

http://www.homeworking.com/discus/index.html

http://www.howtocorphelp.com/htforum/

http://ississ.ning.com/forum

http://www.internetbasedmoms.com/bb/

http://www.marketingprofs.com/ea/index.asp

http://marketingdotcom.com/forum/

http://profits.cc/forum/index.php

http://www.sowpub.com/forum

http://biz-whiz.com/forum.html

http://www.voy.com

http://forums.southernutah.com/

http://www.searchengineforums.com/

http://linkexchangeforum.net