The author states ” In upstate New York, a growing accpetance of teleworking could eventually spur a population migration toward rural towns throught of as nice places to live, but far from where the majority of jobs are located.”  Wouldn’t that be wonderful? The problem is getting more acceptance of telecommuting, which often (and maybe rightly so) requires proving yourself to your employer first as a full-time in-the-office worker and branching out to telecommuting gradually.

With the option of telecommuting, at least part of the time, my husband can now work from his hometown in Maine -allowing us to take that extra day of travel and avoid some of the heavy weekend traffic when we visit. And with ancillary devices, such as smart phones, one can even create their own mobile hot spot for accessing the Internet.   

I am intrigued by the sexy, futuristic iPad but I’m overwhelmed, too. Long ago I would get excited over the newest iteration of cell phone but now I’m simply getting annoyed by all of this technology.

Last year the netbook was the “it” tech item, with reviewers writing that it would replace the laptop. 

How many gadgets do we need? How many gadgets will marketers get us to purchase?

A desktop computer?

A cellphone?

A laptop?

A netbook?

an iPod?

Blackberry?

iPhone?

iTouch?

Kindle?

iPad?

AAGHHH!

And when the latest gadget comes along what do we do with the old? It’s such a waste.

I await the day not far into the future when we have what my husband has coined “the iWall”. We’ll be able to turn a wall into a giant touch screen and flip through documents and type simply by brushing our fingers across the wall.

The findings were published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.

Control at work, to me , includes the option to telecommute, which may cut down on stress from commuting and can provide more time for family and exercise. Unfortunately “the researchers found no studies of telecommuting or job sharing that met their quality criteria — pointing to a need for more research into those types of work conditions.”

But the study did point out (and somewhat obvious) that “For years, studies have found links between “high job strain” and heightened rates of heart disease, depression and other ills.”  My mother, who recently retired, spent the last twenty years working at a power plant in a desk job. She was a union employee who was given no control over how she handled her work day.  She clocked in and clocked out, so to speak. Over the years her health began to deteriorate slightly prompting her physician to put her on a few medications to combat high cholesterol and reflux. Two months after she retired her cholesterol dropped 60 points. 60 points!!  While her situation is not a scientific study and cannot account for any cumulative affect her medications had on her cholesterol level, her overall happiness is greater because she now has control over her day.

The site says “With drop-and-go charging for up to four devices at once, myGrid takes the hassle—and the cords—out of charging your mobile devices. Just put a Power Sleeve™ or Power Clip on each of your handheld devices and then you can simply place them on myGrid to charge. myGrid works with most cell phones, including Apple,® BlackBerry, Motorola, and Nokia as well as most handheld MP3 players.”

I’d like to hear how well it works. It looks pretty neat to me.

I need to squeeze in at least one hour of work to check emails and send out a few critical pieces of correspondence but PBS Kids isn’t cutting it. He’s wandering around looking for something to do. That means pulling all the tape from the tape dispenser, removing every star shaped sticky note from the pad, and dumping paper clips across my work table.  Actions like this used to bother me a lot but what am I going to do? Getting upset about it won’t change the situation. He needs my attention and I have responsibilities to both him and work.

Now that I’ve caught up on my emails he is helping me write this post by pushing the enter button every few spaces. In a few years both of my kids might  actually be helpful around the office. I can assign little chores or they can do their homework at my work table while I type away at the desk. For now, however, on the days when they are home thanks to a snow day or illness I’ll do my best to enjoy their busy little hands getting into everything and creating paper clip works of art around my office.

I have been slow to embrace all that technology has to offer. Really. I mean, I just started texting this year and I think I’ve hit the 10 texts mark. My main problem with technology is that there will always be something better, something faster, something sexier.  And these gadgets are not cheap.  The question is, for how long will I just dip my toes in the water, lurking at the edge, hesitating? When will be the right time to pony up the cash and just do it?  I decided I really need to get my act together and embrace this digital age in which we live.

Alas, I was very sad when I went to the Verizon store to upgrade to a smart phone and realized that unless I want to pay $600 for the Palm Pre (which I really, really want) I will have to wait an entire year before I am eligible for another upgrade. (My last phone met its watery death thanks to a wayward bottle of apple juice and I had to buy a new phone out of sync with my plan).

Drat. I don’t want to switch service providers unless someone can give me a great (I mean really great) reason to get the iPhone, so I suppose I’ll spend the next year reviewing the 50 new phones that come on the market. And making sure it’s time to swim.

I watched the video and while I can certainly see the benefit I have to admit I thought it was a little creepy. It got me to thinking about privacy issues as well. It’s easy to hear the footsteps of someone walking up behind you, however this robot is a bit like Elaine’s sidler. It’s hard to tell how much noise the robot puts out on the video but maybe a few jangly bells around its “neck” are in order.

The benefits, once you get past the silliness of talking to a robot as if it is a physical human, could be quite valuable. Despite conference calls and web sharing, it is important to have face time with colleagues. It is easy to forget or to pay little attention to someone who isn’t in front of you on a day-to-day basis. I never bought that absence-makes-the-heart-grow-fonder line. I think absence makes you forget, simple.

But the cost of a robot? There are no figures available for this robot, however using Skype a couple times a week for meetings might be a better bet. And a little less creepy.

It was time to fight for mom time.

Kids safely occupied in the playroom I begin my new journey toward health with an old fitness video that I am very fond of. The first half of the video goes well, with my kids occasionally coming in to the room to see what I am up to. They look at the video for a minute, attempt some of the cardio moves (adorable), then move back to their toys.

The problems begin when I hit the floor for ab and leg work. My two-year-old thinks it is funny to get into the rolls of toilet paper stashed in the bathroom (a common theme) then drag the rolls into my workout space. From my vantage point I can see toilet paper all over the place, laying in mounds on the floor, trailing behind his little diaper clad bum.  Ugh.  I’m not going to quit, I tell myself. I am thirty plus minutes into this video. If I stop I will lose my momentum.  Just as I come to relative peace with the toilet paper strung about, he walks over to me with a grin and piles toilet paper on my head.

Time for flat-on-the-back ab work. Two year-old thinks it is funny to sit on my chest. I push through. I…will…not…quit. And I don’t. I keep doing sit-ups. This is just like using a medicine ball, I tell myself.  A twenty-eight pound medicine ball.

It feels like I crack my hip when the two-year-old jumps on my leg, mid leg lift. The four-year-old follows. Ouch.

A few more days of this chaos during mommy’s workout time and they begin to wear me down. But I’m not going to quit! I decide maybe it’s time to see what other fitness videos are out there, thanks to Netflix instant streaming.  I come across a video with one of my favorite instructors, Ellen Barrett. It seems fun. Wait… there is standing ab work.  And the leg work incorporates lots of standing lunges. Success! I have outwitted the kids!

…Until I get bored and need to find another video. Maybe I’ll have to incorporate some kid-friendly hikes into our future. Or purchase that Hawaii chair Ellen was so fond of.

As a work-from-homer I  agree with this . Just ask my husband. My organization skills sometimes drive him crazy. In fact one of my favorite “hobbies” is purging the house of stuff. If I haven’t used it in the last six months it’s outta here.

To maintain productivity in the home office and simply keep track of what projects I am working on I create folders for each of the three societies I manage. The folders are key to my organization, though my system certainly wouldn’t work for everyone. I have one file drawer next to my desk for Open Projects. In that file drawer are three file folders, one for each client. Within each folder is a notepad with a list of current projects, notes for follow-ups, etc. On any given day that I am working I can take out one file folder and know exactly what needs to be worked on and what needs to be followed up. I also keep a master calendar with the dates for each Board meeting I attend as well as the workshops I organize.

Each association also has it’s own filing cabinet. Each cabinet is well organized and I credit that to lack of actual paper. I could have years of membership applications stuffing the files full, however I digitize the past years materials every month, using a document scanning service called Pixily.  This not only provides greater ease when searching for a document, but I can also create multiple back-ups to distribute to the Presidents of the societies. I once heard a horror story about years worth of paper destroyed from a flooded basement where the files were being kept. No one wants boxes of materials filling their office or their basement, but a few discs are okay by most everyone.

As a telecommuter I really believe organization is key to success.