[ad#right]Working from home running your own company is hard to do that job when you are not very comfortable sitting at your computer every day. If you didn’t know I am in Pittsburgh, PA and I run my websites out of my house. I have turned the extra bedroom into an office for. When I first moved in I had the room setup a completely different way than what it is now. Originally I had the 2 desks separated, one in each corner of the room. This really did not work at all, things just became too cramped and my desk was really cluttered. Mainly because I had my 4 external drives on the desk, which was not the best idea. Below is a photo of what my old desk looked like.
While this setup was nice it really did not leave that much room in the office and it sort of divided things, which I didn’t like. So a week ago or so I totally redesigned the office as well as cleaning it. I basically took everything out of the office, cleaned it, then put everything back. So here is what the office looks like now…
As you can see I have moved both the desks together to form 1 large desk and yes those are Ikea desks! On the side of the desk facing out we have our test systems, so this is where we do all of our hard drive, enclosure, display, power supply, etc testing. Before we go over to my desk on the other side of the room I have a table setup that I use to take product photos on and makes for a good assembly table for building systems.
I really try to keep my desk clean, like I said its hard to get work done when you are working on a messy desk! I have a dual-monitor setup, which I don’t think I could live without! It really helps with multitasking and makes it easy to keep track of everything. If you are wondering I use Logitech’s diNovo Edge wireless keyboard and their MX Revolution mouse. My tower actually sits beside the desk on an end table.
My current system is comprised of an Intel Core i7-920 processor, ASUS P6T motherboard, Sparkle Calibre P980X+ geForce 9800GTX+, 3GB of Kingston HyperX T1 Series DDR3 memory, Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W Modular Power Supply, NZXT Panzerbox ATX Gaming Case and the NZXT Sentry LX Fan Controller. To keep clutter off my desk I have all 4 of my external drives sitting under the end table.
After all of the changes the office is a great place to work on new systems, install and test new products and of course write reviews. It streamlines everything as I build and take pictures one place, test products another place, then write everything in another. If you have any questions about the office please leave them in the comments below…
[ad#right]When you are working, especially when you are working for yourself and at home time management is very important! Bad time management can really make productivity go down. Many times when my time management isn’t that good it seems like I never get anything done. This can be very frustrating going day after day feeling like I’ve accomplished nothing! This usually isn’t the case because I have implemented a few simple things that really help me with time management. So what are they?
To Do Lists
This probably has to be the #1 thing you should do when you are trying to manage your time effectively. Setting up daily to do lists really helps you get things done. It is hard to stay motivated when you don’t know what all you need to get done and when you have a list setup you feel like you are getting things done when you start making things off the list. I usually setup my daily to do list either the night before or when I wake up.
Timed Lunches
I work from home and for the most part I usually make my own lunch rather than going out. Sometimes when I have lunch I tend to sit around and watch TV after eating. This is not a good thing because I can’t be sitting around watching TV all day. I try to make my lunches right around 30 minutes. That gives me time to eat and a little time to relax. I try and pick shows to watch in the afternoon that are 30 minutes long so I know when the show is over I can go back to work, Entourage is a great show for that.
Somewhat of a Schedule
While everyday can be different for me I do have some structure to my days. Having a simple schedule really helps me get things done and in good time too. I know each day I will have to post news on ThinkComputers, most likely write a review, etc.
Turn things off
Everyone knows that there are some things that can just eat your day up. For most people it is Facebook or YouTube. They can just sit there all day on those sites. When I’m working I usually never have Facebook up and for the most part I have an away message on my instant messenger. I don’t need to be sitting there all day talking to people or creeping around on Facebook. It’s just a easier to get work done without distractions.
[ad#right]I’ve become a big fan of Pho over the past few years, from my first Pho in Vegas to finding out about Pho Minh in Pittsburgh. I was browsing the Pittsburgh Tweetup website and I noticed they had a Pho event coming up. My first thoughts were that it would be held at Pho Minh, but it was scheduled to be at a place called Vietnam’s Pho. Being a big fan of Pho I was surprised I had never heard of Vietnam’s Pho before. I looked it up and they even had a website! I definitely wanted to check it out so my friend Colin and I headed down for the Tweetup.
Vietnam’s Pho is located on Penn Ave. in the Strip district and by 8PM we were able to find a parking spot right in front of the place. Inside we were greeted by a very helpful staff and to my surprise it was very nice inside. The staff was nice enough to pull tables together to fit our entire group. I ordered the #11 which is the Pho Tai-Sach, which has beef and tripe in it. I’ve really come to enjoy tripe in my Pho. In no time at all our food was done and we were served. Just like most Vietnamese places the portions were quite large and the food was great. It definitely contends with Pho Minh, but I haven’t been there in quite some time so I really cannot compare the 2 yet. I would recommend that anyone looking for good Pho in Pittsburgh try Vietnam’s out. I need to go back and try some of their other dishes! Here after some photos of the food and our group.
[ad#right]Lately I haven’t had time to watch any TV or even listen to Podcast’s that I would listen to on a weekly basis. One thing I always try to do is listen or watch things that inspire me or make me want to do more. Surprisingly the Random Show is one of those things. The Random Show was put together by Kevin Rose and Tim Ferris where they talk about traveling, investing, technology, health etc. Kevin Rose is the founder of Digg.com, but you also may know him from The Screen Savers back in the old TechTV days. Tim Ferris is best know for his book The 4-Hour Workweek
The show is those 2 sitting down and talking about pretty much anything, hence the name The Random Show. There really is no schedule of when new episodes will come out but there are 8 right now. I have embedded the first 3 episodes below, but you can check out most of them here and here is the link to episode 8. Enjoy!
[ad#right]2010 is sure going by very quickly! It is already March and it seems like it was just the new year not that long ago! This month hasn’t been the best here is Pittsburgh as we’ve had some of the worst snow storms in recent memory as you could tell from my Snowed In post. I was extremely busy working on a new project and ThinkComputers last month so I was only able to write 6 posts, my favorite out of them would have to be the Things I love about Pittsburgh post.
Popular Posts
So what was everyone checking out this month? Let’s take a look…
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1. SUSHISAMBA at the Palazzo
2. Snowed In!
3. Super Bowl Ads 2010
4. Things I Love About Pittsburgh
5. January 2010 Thoughts
Great to see the new articles getting most of the traffic!
Traffic Sources
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1. John Chow
2. Facebook
3. Twitter
4. A Dawn Journal
5. Justin.tv
Nice to see some new traffic sources up there!
Top Commentators
Well I said I was busy this month so I forgot to take a screenshot of the top commentators on the last day of February!
Stats
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RSS Readers 223 (-736)
Twitter Followers 6152 (+110)
Facebook Friends 1497 (+26)
As you can see the RSS numbers are way down, maybe this is because I switched this blog over to a new server, I’m not sure yet!
On to March
I think that March will be a good blogging month for me. Blogging gives me a good break from the normal everyday work I do so expect a lot more posts this month!
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