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’m not sure how that works for the employee but for some employers the situation can be less than beneficial. Forbes recently wrote an article about a company in Maryland who has one telecommuter living/working in New Jersey. New Jersey legislature has stated that one employee in the state of Maryland is sufficient to claim that the company does business there. Now New Jersey is requiring the Maryland firm to file corporate taxes with the state.

It’s quite a disappointment. That law will only hurt efforts to increase telecommuting in the future.

So where are all of you telecommuters? Get in touch. I could use some camaraderie in the area.

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.

Most days I am happy to walk down to my office and savor the quiet. The kids are at preschool, husband is at the office, and not a sound can be heard apart from a soft hum from my fireplace. Most days this is just fine with me. I like myself. I like being by myself. But then loneliness peeks his pesky head around the door and starts putting bothersome thoughts in my head.

When is the last time you ate lunch with someone?

Don’t you miss actually talking to people during the week??

Aren’t you worried you’ll lose your ability to communicate and have to resort to grunts and signs???

Do you know anything at all that is going on outside your little.. insular.. office.. BUBBLE????

AAHHH! I am lonely. Working from home can take its toll. How much can one person stand being alone? I don’t even have conference calls this week.

Time to get out in the real world and make some telecommuting friends–maybe we could meet for lunch once a week, in person, that is.

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.

I picked out. Most mornings it is a pleasant place in which to work.  This morning, however, I feel like I am at the zoo. I live in a neighborhood, but the area is somewhat rural meaning I see the occasional turkey trotting through the yard, some bunnies, something that appears to be a woodchuck, and this morning a swarm of geese.

For the past 30 minutes they have been honking away, LOUDLY. Shutting the windows doesn’t drown out their noise. It is like nothing I have ever heard at my house – it appears they are having some type of “discussion”- and it is completely and totally distracting.

A telecommuting background is enormously helpful when one is away on vacation or business. You might argue that no one should be working while on vacation (with which I agree) but in today’s world it is usually necessary to at least check email. I find this is necessary just to avoid the deluge in my inbox upon returning (I find it incredibly stressful having to spend an entire day sorting through those emails to make sure I haven’t missed something of extreme importance).

I am on vacation this week but working a couple of hours in preparation for an upcoming workshop that I must coordinate when I return. If I wasn’t already used to finding wireless hotspots, handling almost all communications by email and, occasionally, cell phone, and comfortable working alone, I would have a great deal more stress about accomplishing what needs to be done so that all is in order when I get back.

If employers get their employees used to telecommuting and comfortable with accomplishing their tasks away from the office desk, it will be easier for employees to handle, quickly and effectively, emergencies that may come up when they are away.