Being a web worker is fantastic, but it also poses a few challenges that we have never had to deal with before. Traditionally, it was always fairly easy to separate our work and personal lives, but with many of us now working in our personal space, the line has become quite blurred.

Setting boundaries

When I first started working exclusively from home, I was more interested in making sure that I was getting enough work to pay then bills, then I was interested in setting boundaries. I used to work continuously.

I definitely don’t recommend this.

Even when you are first starting out, it is important to define some boundaries. Things like work hours, and no it is not a good idea to work as much as possible, or work places. For instance, I only do work in certain rooms of the house, this may seem strange but having a work zone is incredibly important if you want to not only be a good worker, but also be free from work.

Allowing some slack

If you work in a traditional office space, I think you would be surprised at the sheer amount of time that is spent actually not working. Meeting, lunch breaks, stops at the water cooler, these all add up to a small breaks from work. And guess what? They are important.

Working at a home office does not always present yourself with any type of break, and as such it is quite easy to get burnt out. I actually try to give myself a few small household chores everyday, just to break up work a little bit and make me a more efficient worker.

Actually moving

Like I said, I am a web worker, which means long hours sitting in front of a computer and not getting a lot of excercise. I have read countless studies telling my how bad this is, but the reality is all I had to do was look in the mirror to see what it was doing to me.

The first year I worked from home I definitely put on some weight, and left it there. Now, that I have nearly four years under my belt, I make darn sure that I excercise nearly every day. I cannot stress this part enough, not only will it keep you feeling and looking good, it is an amazing mental release from the stresses of working for yourself.

Scheduling balance

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.” – Albert Einstein

The easiest way to find that elusive balance is simply to start. Here are a few things you can schedule to help you on your way:

• Schedule time blocks – start by scheduling everything. From waking up time to having lunch. As you get into a routine you will be able to slack off a bit if you like.
• Say “No” – I know this is easier said then done, but sometimes it is important for you to know when it is time to say “No”. Like, “No, I won’t work 17days in a row” or “No, I can’t pull an all nighter and get this to you in the morning”
• Get out – I mean literally getting up and getting out of the house. Go on a date, go for a bike ride, go see a movie. Anything that is not in the same building as your home office.
• Start a journal – not all the suggestions I gave will work for you, the only way you will find your balance is if you actively search for it. A great way is to document exactly how you feel.

How about you?

Do you have any tricks or suggestions you would like to add? Use the comments.

With Football season upon us, I have been doing a bit too much work in front of the old tube on Sundays. Anyways, as my work and my past time meld together into that jumbled mess I call a brain, I noticed that a smart web company could learn a lot from Football.

Game plan

It is common knowledge that a football team spends an entire week ( and probably much longer) getting ready for the next opponents. A game plan is drawn up and put into motion on Sunday. That means that Football teams spend at least 6 times as much time planning their executions before actually doing them. I don’t know if I would call this a golden ratio, but I think that we would see far more effective web sites if more time was spent on the actual planning.

Execution

“We knew what we needed to do , we just failed to execute” is a mantra amongst losing teams. So, unless you want to have a losing web site you better pay close attention to the execution. Once your plan is in place, STICK TO IT! The plan is what makes a successful web site or just another run of the mill link in the Google index.

Competition

In football they have one real distinct advantage … they know exactly who their competition is going to be. In the world of Web development, this is a crucial step that needs to be fully examined first, before even the Game Plan is put into place. Unless. you are running a website that has absolutely no competition ( uh ya right) then you had best know who the other guys are and how you plan on beating them. Do the detective work first.

Keeping Score

So once, you have prepared yourself and are ready to play the game, or launch a website, you are all done right? Uh no! Do they not look at the scoreboard on Sunday? Are you kidding me, the score is the only thing that matters, and if you are serious it will be the only thing that matters to you as well. We may not track field goals and touchdowns, but we can certainly track site visitors and conversion ratios. These need to be your score board and you need to pay VERY close attention to these, because if you are behind on the score board it might be time to throw a few hail marys.

We live in a world of ever changing technology. I am not referring to just the new stuff that is being created every day, but about old stuff re-inventing itself, or just releasing a new version.
How many times have we heard that what you buy is outdated the minute you leave the store, or drive off the car lot?
I am not judging whether this is right or wrong, I am just saying that we have created a society that always wants the latest and greatest. After all how many of us are driving around SUV’s that have never been off-road or hauled a single thing?

This presents a unique set of problems for a web designer, especially if you focus (like I do) on an established CMS (WordPress) with loads of free plugins. My clients invariably want the latest and greatest whether they need it or not. I find a great amount of my time is spent dealing with this problem, I have to first educate my clients on why they do not need all the bells and whistles before I can provide them with an effective web site.

Here are a couple of steps that I use to help me with my clients.

Spend the appropriate amount of time on discovery

Project discovery is the best asset that you will ever have. If you are not using this as part of your work flow you need to start immediately. If you are not familiar with Discovery, it is the art of interviewing your client before you ever take on the project. During this process you will want to ‘discover’ a few of these things.

• Goal/Vision
• Product
• Audience

When your client becomes enthralled with the latest gadget for their site, be sure to focus them on the entire goal of the site. What are they trying to accomplish? Does this ‘gadget’ fit into these goals? Is the target audience going to use it?

Technical Know How

You are going to want to know a bit about your client. Like are they technically savvy? Or do they still use VCR’s that flash 12 o’clock at home? Remember as Web Developer we have a bit more know how when it comes to technical things. I have had many clients that need an inordinate amount of time spent with them, just to learn a few basic things like logging into a CMS or creating a post in WordPress. These clients are definitely going to struggle when it comes to some of the more advanced uses that WordPress can do. It is our job to make sure they are only using the tools they need and are not overwhelmed with settings they don’t need or want.

Summary

Your clients are going to be bombarded with technical jargon daily, it is only natural that they will believe some of the hype and want to stay on top of the technology game. While I tend to try and discourage my clients from taking on too much, I also try to remind myself that I am in the customer relationship business and in the end the client will be happier if you give them what they want. One of the ways I try to meld the two trains of thought, is to sell my clients on a maintenance package where I can take care of the technical stuff and they can concentrate on running their businesses. That way we are both satisfied with the results. What do you do for you clients?

I recently went on my first GEO caching hike. If you have never been I highly recommend them as my entire family had a blast!

If you have no idea what a GEO cache here is the short description:

Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment.

Geochaching.com

Anyways it occurred to me that the same thing happens approximately 2 billion times a day. For those that have guessed from the title, that is the latest estimate for the number of searches performed daily on Google. So how is geocahing similar? Let’s break it down..

Getting Started

In both geocaching and search you have to decide on specific goals. Before you start a Geocache you have to decide on a specific one to complete there are literally millions,GeoCaching.com is a good place to start but like search engines there are a lot of different options .

In search you have to first be looking for something, no matter how specific. You also need to start at search engine, like geocaching there are a lot of options.

Refine your Search

In geocaching you start out with one set of coordinates, when you get there you need to find some more clues to move you one your way. Anyone that has used a search engine can immediately relate, try searching for a generic search term like ‘puppy’. You will be bombarded with millions of results that may or may not answer your question. To get your answers you will probably have to do some research and enter a more specific term in like ‘puppy training’.

As you further refine your search terms you get closer and closer to the answer that you are looking for. With geocaching you will need to find all the clues to be able to find the final ‘treasure cache’. In both cases specificity is very important.

Conclusion

There is an actual web lesson to be learned here, that is that people looking for answers need be looking with very specific search terms or ‘keywords’. When you begin your search engine optimization the keywords will often determine whether your efforts are going to be a success or fall flat. The good news is with search engine optimization you can get your keywords mostly right and still turn them into a success, with geocaching you cannot possibly finish without having the coordinates EXACTLY right, but that is another story…

There is no doubt that the internet is full of great things, the problem is information overload. Take the iphone app store , with over a 100,000 apps available who has time to go through them all? I guess now is a good time to give a shout out to Envato’s app storm are a really great resource for iphone apps.

So what does this have to do with Firefox? Nothing really, It’s just that Mozilla’s browser has so many great add-ons it is hard to sort through all the junk to find a few gems. The way I have found most of the extensions I use it by reading a blog post or talking to friends. So, in no particular order here are the Firefox plugins that I use.

Summary

So that is what I generally use, I have been known to add a few more here and there, but for the most part I like to keep my extensions to the basics. Do you know of any great extensions? Add them to the comments and let us know why we should try them out.