HOW TO STAY FOCUSED WHEN YOU WORK FROM HOME

Image by Oleksandr Pidvalnyi from Pixabay

You thought when you work from home you won't be disturbed or distracted, however, your pets, toddlers, other people or matters keep asking for your time & attention. Here are some suggestions to minimize distractions and stay focus on your remote work or online job.

1) Whenever possible, secure a secluded or private space to work in.

If you are single and you have your own bedroom then that's great, where better place to work inside your house but in your own private space i.e. your bedroom. 

However, if you are someone who shares a room with a sibling in case where both of you are still young, unmarried and living with your parents or if you are someone with a friend whom you share the cost of renting a studio or 1-bedroom apartment, it's best to create a work area outside of/separate from your common room/area. This is so that you can respect the other person's privacy and also that some work requires privacy due to sensitive documents and information that you are probably handling.  

If you are living with your parents, perhaps you have an unused room in your house like a guest room or a family member who are now living/working afar & seldom goes home. Perhaps you have a corner somewhere within your house where there are minimal visual & auditory distractions.

If you are married but your spouse is working in the office, you still can use a part of your couple's room as a work area. For sure there's a corner or side that your spouse can spare you with and leave you to work privately and comfortably.

Some work requires not only privacy but a quiet environment especially when you usually make or take phone calls or video calls. Here's what you can do to seclude your work area out of a common area.

a) Hang a curtain or use a modular partition stand

b) Use a cabinet and/or drawers to compartmentalize your area

c) Line up some tall indoor plants

2) If your workspace is in your bedroom, place a partition wall or something to hide your bed from your work area.

Thank you for the background effects in Zoom & Google Meet, you can hide your actual background in virtual meetings. However, the purpose is not only that your bed will not be seen in your video meetings but to avoid or minimize the instances of you wanting to lay down/sleep every time you see the sight of your comfortable bed. Sometimes the bed can be enticing specially when boredom strikes from your monotonous or repetitive tasks.

3) Keep your child and pets away during work hours.

If you have toddlers, make them understand when the right time for play is and needed time for work, why you need to do this and be away from them for a while. Don't underestimate a young child's capacity to grasp situation where he/she needs to adjust & behave accordingly. However, be sure that they have a guardian taking care of them to give you peace of mind, so you don't worry about them while working.

If you have a pet or pets, take them out of the room. If you're working outside of a room, place them somewhere else or put them temporarily in a cage if they're insistent.

4) Maintain a clean and organized work desk/area.

You are feeling that great momentum at work when suddenly you need a pen, and you can't find it. For some if not most, there's this tendency to forget what's currently in one's mind or at the tip of one's tongue when we get distracted and it takes a little time to recall where we left of, especially when you have a lot on your mind. Maintaining a clean and organized work desk will minimize instances of losing seconds or minutes trying to find a misplaced needed item and hence minimizes the times when we lose that gained momentum at work.

Top 5 Most Popular Websites for Freelancers

   Image by Mudassar Iqbal from Pixabay

New to freelancing? There are a ton of websites for freelancers where you can find an online job. But as a newbie, you can start with these 5 most popular ones.  These are websites which stand as a 3rd party platform between freelancers and employers.

1) Upwork

Wond'ring why Odesk and Elance were out of the online job marketplace industry for a long-time  now?  That's because they merged and formed Elance-Odesk on December 18, 2013 and rebranded with the name Upwork in 2015.  

I am an Odesk member prior their merging. Member accounts of former Odesk and Elance were just transferred to Upwork. Our accounts were not deactivated and it's up to us if we will continue to work on the new platform given that there's a lot of changes in their policies.

Website: Upwork.com

Membership Registration : Free, chance to apply to jobs or projects is initially 10 connects but as you received projects and good feedbacks, Upwork will give you more free connects.  An option to upgrade 
membership is available for $14.99 USD monthly subscription with the benefit of having your profile more discoverable. You will also  have additional 70 connects or application attempts to bid on projects

There is also an option to buy additional connects based on your budget.

Pros: 

a. You choose how you get paid. Payment Options are direct bank deposit, Paypal, Payoneer, wire

    transfer and more.

b. You can create/build your own team. You get to earn extra when you are a team creator/leader.

c) You can choose how you will work. Either short-term or long-term, on a fixed project or hourly-paid       project.

d) Payment is guaranteed through an escrow.

     

Con:

Service fees. 

Service fees, formerly called as commission, is an amount taken from every freelancer for every completed works/projects computed based on percentage of your earnings.

20% for the 1st $500 USD bill to clients

10% for the total billings between $500 to $10,000 USD

  5%  for the total billings exceeding $10,000 USD

You may join Upwork through this link: Sign Up at Upwork

2) Fiverr

Fiverr is a website where freelancer can offer just about anything as long as it is legal and complies

with Fiverr terms and conditions of use. There are over 200 categories to choose from.

A gig starts at $5 per project but it's up to you how you will price your service.

Example: I can translate 500 words from Tagalog to English for $5. (short-term)

                I can be your virtual assistant for $5 per hour (with potential for long-term or repeat

                projects depending on the needs of the clients)

Website: Fiverr.com

Membership Registration: Free

Pros:

a) You can create a specific skill/tasks that you want to work with. There's no ad hoc tasks. You can particularly specify the kind of service you are offering. For example, if you're a graphic designer, you can offer, "I can design your company logo using Canva for $5" or "I can create your Youtube intro/extro for $5.

b) Flexibility. You decide when to work on the project as long as you meet the deadline.

You decide if you want to do it part-time or full-time. You also choose your work load  if you want to fully load yourself with projects, offer and accept as many projects as you want. If not, offer lesser skills/services or schedule the projects based on their deadlines.

c) No membership upgrade fees or requirement so everyone has equal opportunities.

Con.

a) You will only receive 80% of the paid transaction.  Fiverr takes 20% commission per successful

transaction.

    

b) Payment is not released until the client approved with the freelancer's work. 

You may find yourself revising a done work once, twice or repeatedly until the client is satisfied

with your output.

You may join Fiverr through this link: Join us at Fiverr!

3) Freelancer

Freelancer.com is an Australian-owned freelance job marketplace founded in 2009 which headquarter is located in Sydney, Australia.

Website can no longer be reached  It's possible that the website already ceased to operate because of  the legal issues they're facing since 2015 related to violation of Privacy Acts.

    

I only listed this one since they are one of the most popular but there are a lot of other options anyway.

Please do note that Freelancer.com and Freelance.com are distinct and separate from each other so I hope you won't be confused. Freelancer.com was founded in 2009 while Freelance.com was founded in 1995. 

4) Guru

Guru was established in 1998 out of their offices in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA and Noida India. It works very similar to Upwork's platform.

 Membership registration: Free.  Guru offers paid membership options. where you get to have more number of bids, boost profile searchability and lesser transaction fee.

Pros

a) Has lower transaction fee (commission fee) compared to Upwork and Fiverr.  Guru takes only 

about 9-10% of your paid transaction.

b) Secured payment. During agreement with hiring employer, you may request the latter to fund "SafePay" before you begin to work. Safepay is a shared account funded by employers as an 

escrow.

c) Website is user-friendly, transparent and has a support system similar to Upwork.

d) They offer arbitration services in case of disagreement between freelancer & employer. Upwork 

also mediates while Fiverr didn't mention this matter upfront in their website but they have 24/7

customer support.

Con

Since the platform is similar to Upwork but has lower transaction fee, the only thing that might be

a challenge will be stiff competition. Since like Upwork, Guru is a global online job marketplace for

freelancers, rivalry is tough because you're not only competing with your countrymen but you 

are competing for projects with freelancers around the globe. Winning a project is like winning Miss

Universe. 😄

Anyway, the same is true with Fiverr, People Per Hour and other freelance websites as long as it's

open to freelancers worldwide. If you have other options like us Filipinos, where foreign companies

prefers to hire most of their employees and freelancers in the Philippines, you must also be a one

lucky soul.

You may join Guru.com through this link: Sign Up on Guru - Hire Freelancers & Get Freelance Jobs Online

5) People Per Hour

Founded in 2007, People Per Hour has 3 Million registered freelancers in their platform. Their

platform is like a combination of Upwork and Fiverr where you can post skills/services to offer

or bid on posted projects by employers.

Website: PeoplePerHour.com

Membership Registration: Free, bid up to 15 projects per month. You can buy proposal credit to 

increase the number of projects you can bid to.

Pros

a) The good combination of Upwork and Fiverr where you can do both, bid on projects and post

a service to offer.

b) The same with Upwork and Guru, People Per Hour provides escrow on payment.

Con

The same with Upwork, Fiverr, Guru and other global freelance platforms, competition is rigid as

in this platform, rating and feedback system are also used.

 

You may join People Per Hour through this link: PeoplePerHour.com - Hire Freelancers Online & Find Freelance Work

***

All of these 5 online job websites requires you to build a great profile and portfolio.  You have to know how to specially sell your skills/services to beat the global competition. It could be very hard at first, but it's very rewarding in the end.

    

Please find this collective list of the best freelance platforms according to Payoneer.com.

Why are they popular? They are the most-recommended and most mentioned freelance platforms in blogs, Youtube videos and freelancers Facebook community. They have been a go-to for freelancers who are looking for either a part-time or full-time online job or online gig because of the following reasons.

a) Legitimacy of job post

b) Security of payment

c) More job options

d) Opportunities for longer project/s or full-time employment

e) Ease of Use

There are also websites and manpower agencies which are targeted exclusively and/or mostly open for Filipino freelancers. These are created not only by local companies in the Philippines but by foreign companies around the world. Some of these are as follows:

Onlinejobs.ph

Virtualstaff.ph

Remotestaff.ph

Virtualstaff365.com

FreeUp.net

MyOutdesk.com

VirtualAssistantTalent.com

Kinetic.Online

Vavavoom.solutions

VAAPhilippines.com

You might want to read:  

Working Home: Is Freelancing Better than a Regular Office Job (onworkinghome.blogspot.com)