Work at Home Productivity Tips –

Or as Stephen Covey puts it, sharpen the saw.

This really was hit home for me this weekend.

It's kind of a long story, but here it goes.

I live in the country so a good internet connection is always a challenge. After himmin' ad hawin' I finally got satellite hook up last year. It took me far too long to make the switch.

It's not high speed, but it's better than dial up – usually.

Along with it, we got a router so that we could run my new computer – which I took too long to purchase – connected as well as my old one that the kids use now.

I can't believe that I ever even attempted to share a computer with them once they where old enough to want on.

I can't believe that there ever was a time that they didn't, but I did indeed use to spend long evenings typing away and they never even asked. Those where the days!

Anyway. Last spring I bought my oldest daughter a laptop in exchange for doing jobs around the house.

The problem was that I didn't know how to hook her on to our connection and couldn't find the disk or documentation, oddly enough it showed up exactly where we looked about 10x, hate when that happens! At least it showed up.

But I still left it sitting on my desk for about 3 weeks, waiting for a time that I had time to set it up.

Meanwhile, she was getting a little sick of waiting and jobs around the house where piling up as her incentive was going down. I couldn't blame her.

This weekend I took my youngest daughter out for a birthday party with 5 of her friends at a motel. It was a blast, gives me a chance out too and I brought my laptop to check out the wireless high speed.

Did I mention that I have a laptop that I could have been using online around the house all this time had I hooked it up to wireless?

When I got home, I was sold on wireless and decided to spend the afternoon hooking up our laptops. It did take me the afternoon because I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong on mine.

Ironically, it worked like a charm on my daughter's so I was able to figure mine out within minutes after hooking hers up.

And now I can't believe that I have been a full year confined to the corner in my office because I didn't take the few hours it took to figure this out.

Bad. Bad. Bad.

And I should know better.

I KNOW the power of setting yourself up, creating a firm foundation to work from etc etc.

So I have to ask.

Is there anything that you have been putting off that will make a big difference to you if you just take the time?

I'm typing this up sitting out on our deck right now.

Something that I could have been enjoying all summer long.

Bad. Bad. Bad!

Well now it's Good. Good. Good.

Just for the record.

If there is anything, how about you set aside the time today, or pencil it in ASAP.

Gotta laptop? Wireless? Get hooked up, it is so much better.

SIDE NOTE: Just an additional thought on getting others to do things for you, or underestimating your own value in helping others out.

When we had our satellite hooked up, we asked the man about the wireless etc, if he did that, and he said no, it was easy for us to do it. H

ad he taken the 10 minutes, maybe 15 that would have taken him to do it, I would have paid him what ever he asked for it, I would have had it running all of this time.

But it was easier for him to tell me to do it.

Next time you get a chance to go the extra mile, go ahead if you can.

I figure that if everyone did that, this world would be a heck of a nice place to be in.

Tell me, what can I do to go the extra mile?

Got any suggestions?

I'm all ears (good thing my hair covers them :0)