AnywhereMan

People skills are important, especially if you work on your own. Because much of our time can be spent working in isolation away from cubicles and water coolers, keeping your conversation skills sharp should be a high priority. You don’t want to open the floodgates of talking about yourself too much when you interact with someone in person.

I’ve run into this a few times in the past few weeks – ironically with stay-at-home moms who, when you think about it, are kind of in the same situation as a work-from-home freelancer. At the end of the conversations, I kind of felt yucky. The bottom line in a conversation is that you NEVER want to make the other person feel yucky.

Why did I feel yucky? I took note of a few key do-and-don’ts to keep in the back of my mind for future interactions:

Ask Questions

To me, this is maybe the most important piece of a conversation. In order to make it not about YOU, you need to ask the other person about THEM. And try to be more specific than just “How are you?” If you ask something like “How are things going with your new project?” it shows the other person that the things they share with you don’t just go in one ear and out the other.

Keep An Eye On The Clock

In Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, they talk about the 30-60-90 rule. It’s definitely okay to talk about yourself in a conversation (typically when asked), but don’t make your answers too long or go off on tangets. A 30-second response is about perfect. At 60 seconds you’re starting to lose the other person. And you can chalk them up as “bored” at 90 seconds.

Be Positive

Bottom line on this one is don’t dump your dirty laundry on the other person. Tell me about what’s going well in your life (again, when asked). What are you excited about? It’s not that you shouldn’t be real but if you really want a guaranteed way to make the other person to feel yucky, just dump some yucky stuff on them. Be optimistic about the negative things in your life. It’ll actually make the other person feel inspired.

Act Like You’re Interested

When you’re having a short conversation with someone, try to give them your full attention. Don’t act like you’re stuck talking with them or you have nothing better to do. Act like it’s one of the highlights of your day. It’s pretty much a guaranteed way to make them look forward to your next interaction. And in order to keep it from seeming fake, practice the art of smiling with your eyes. Seriously – go look into the mirror and practice this.

Be Encouraging

When you ask someone a question, respond to their response. Positively. When you wrap up the conversation, tell them how good it was to see them. Offer them encouragement about things going on in their life that they may have shared.

Post-Conversation: Store It All In The Archive

Make a mental note of the conversation you just had – or even write down some of what they other person shared. Remember what is going on in that person’s life and use it as conversation material the next time you see them. That’s what’ll really kill any hint of the yucky-factor: it shows the other person that they matter to you.

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Things have gotten really busy for me with the release of my WordPress customization service, TweakMyTheme.com, a few months back. Today I discuss why it’s helped my business.

Here are links to a few things I mention in this video:

• How I Started a Business on a Saturday Part 1
• How I Started a Business on a Saturday Part 2
• Give Each of Your Products or Services a Website

By building a website and community around each of your products/services, you’ll have a chance to really highlight the great things that you are doing. Pick one thing and try it!

I don’t remember where I first learned this trick, but in today’s video I show you how I clean my keyboards, computers, and related components. No need for a can of air or a big, heavy air compressor. You might just have this useful tool in your garage.

My keyboard was definitely due for a good cleaning.

It’s been a quiet year so far here on AnywhereMan. Quiet on the blog, not-so-quiet in real life; it’s been downright busy. Hence, no time for blogging but lots of time to put into practice the concept I talked about in my last video: “Today I’m going to ____.”

In fact, it’s become “Today I’m going to ____. Tomorrow I’m going to ____. And the day after that…” It’s been really crazy.

Last month Seth Godin talked about a simple, free, and awesome web-based to-do list application called TeuxDeux.  I’ve been using it a ton, and while I don’t keep my entire life’s tasks on there, it’s been great for making sure I get every little project update and client request taken care of. If I happen to not get everything done today, it pushes overdue tasks to the next day and marks them in red. There’s even a space for “someday”/big picture tasks.

It’s actually been a total lifesaver.

So when you get up each morning and tell yourself what you need to get done, add it to your TeuxDeux list and get it off your mind.

Do you already have a daily task management app that you use? Tell us about it!

Lately I’ve been keeping an “I Am/I Am Not” list in the back of my notebook to help determine the skills and services I want to offer to my client base.  This helps me accomplish a few things:

1. It helps me narrow down exactly what my business “does”
2. It helps me determine the things I need to get better at and develop through research, education, and practice
3. It helps me cope when working on things I don’t necessarily love doing

The primary goal of my list is to figure out how I can spend more time doing the things on the “I Am” list (and get paid for them), and how to spend as little time as possible (if any) doing things on the “I Am Not” list.

There is nothing super-revolutionary about this practice, but it’s just a way to keep my mind from getting too cluttered.

How do you make sure you are doing what you WANT to be doing?

Image by William Hook via Flickr

In my previous post I came “clean” about my messy desk.  Several of you commented offering words of comfort and advice, and I appreciate that. I reached out to a few organizing experts on Twitter as well, and professional organizer Stacy Kaplan from Clutter Away by Stacy K. offered up some great tips.  Here’s what Stacy had to say:

1. Spend 15 minutes a day organizing your desk. Take a photo at the end of each session to track your progress.
 

2. There are 4 places where a piece of paper should end up:

(1) in the recycle bin (most papers),

(2) on a desktop filer (more about this in the next step),

(3) in a file drawer adjacent to your desk or

(4) in a deep freeze file away from your desk.

Files in spot #2 are for important papers and are most likely currently sitting on your desk. Files for spot #3 are for papers you need regularly. Files for spot #4 are for archival items, such as old taxes and records.
 

3. For your desktop, I recommend using a vertical, graduated filer where each folders stands up and the folder behind is higher than the folder in front. Office Depot and Staples have these filers. You should end up with 5-7 files and they should be for those papers which you need all the time (i.e. To Do, To Read, Bills To Pay, Travel, Tickets/Invitations, etc). Make labels for each folder accordingly.
 

4. Purge (recycle) any papers which are:

- Duplicates

- Obsolete

- Available on your computer or the Internet

- Available from someone else if you accidentally toss

- Untouched for at least a year

- Saved for “just in case” but not critical

- Related to a task you don’t have time to do

Good luck and please keep me posted on your progress!

Thanks for these tips, Stacy! I will keep you and the rest of my readers posted on my journey…my long, much needed journey.  Everyone, be sure to check out Clutter Away by Stacy K. for all sorts of great organizing-related services. Even her website is well organized! 

In an effort to improve my AnywhereMan video workflow, I picked up a new Logitech QuickCam Pro webcam for around $80 which allows me to produce 720p video right at my desktop. So far I love it, and today I talk about this camera as well has the rest of my video setup.  Still tweaking the audio level with the webcam (sorry about the clipping in a few spots!), but I’m really loving the video quality for the price and how it handles the lighting arrangement in my office.

NOTE: So I recorded this video, uploaded it to Vimeo, and had some issues with the frame rate. The audio worked great, but the video took forever to load and after it did I was super choppy. I guess the Logitech software records at 15 fps by default, and Vimeo prefers 30 fps. Trying to figure out whether I need to find 3rd party software to record 30 fps from the webcam, or if I should just start using YouTube over Vimeo from now on.  I will keep you posted. I love Vimeo, but I also love a quicker process!

CONFIRMED AFTER FURTHER RESEARCH: The QuickCam Pro for Notebooks cannot do 720P at 30 fps, just 15 fps. Why don’t they tell you this stuff ON THE BOX? The picture quality still looks great though.  I will stick with this until Microsoft sends me their new LifeCam HD to review on this site.

Shop Online

• Logitech QuickCam Pro for Notebooks from TigerDirect
• Logitech QuickCam Pro for Notebooks from TechDepot
• Logitech QuickCam Pro for Notebooks from Amazon
• Canon Vixia HV30 HDV High Definition Camcorder from TechDepot
• Sony Vegas Pro – ( v. 9 ) – complete package from TechDepot