Why do I like Bitsy?

Day 6 of the 30 Day Blog Challenge is to say something nice about someone/something.  Being a small business owner and working from home I am a regular visitor to the Bitsy website. I’ll sum up Bitsy with a quote from it’s homepage:

Bitsy is the friendliest B2B marketplace on the web. Find people to help your business grow and let other businesses find you too.

And it is just that. Each day they have an online twitter discussion so that homeworkers don’t feel as though they are working alone during the day. Whilst I cannot attend each discussion due to my full time job, I will attend when I can and always enjoy the friendly and lively discussions. You can check back on what has been said by searching for #watercoolermoment on twitter.

The website also as a blog to give homeworkers tips and advice, all of which are to the point and very useful. If you want to connect with the members outside of Twitter you can use the community forums which so far have 950 members across 46 groups ranging from IT support to a book club. If you are a B2B seller you are also able to sell your services/products via the website for a very reasonable fee, which will work out much cheaper than an advert in the local press, and will more than likely have a better chance of success.

So if you are a homeworker and want some company during the day, head on over to Bitsy and join in. The beauty of it all is that if you are mega busy, you can just ignore the forums/twitter, you couldn’t do that easily in an office.

www.bitsythis.com

www.twitter.com/bitsytalk

I’ve not found a better one-stop-shop for a homeworker, if you have done I’d love to hear about it…

8 Tips for a Tidier Workspace

If you work from home you have no doubt come across the problem of your desk being overcrowded and looking like a bomb has hit it. Here a few tips to help you keep your workspace much tidier.

 

• Only get out the work that you are currently working on
• You only need 1 pen, 1 pencil & 1 highlighter so keep the rest in a drawer, preferably with a desk/drawer tidy in it
• Leave one side of your desk clear, this can be used if you need to make notes about the work
• Try to work with electronic documents as much as possible. Why go to the need of printing documents out just to look at? They can be easily viewed on screen – it also helps cut down your paper/stationery costs.
• Store all your electronic documents on a USB memory stick or burn them to CD/DVD. It will save you lots of storage space.
• Make a list at the start of each day (Sticky notes are great for this in Windows 7) and organise your day in a logical format, ticking off each item when it is done
• When you have finished each task, clear it off your desk to make way for the next one – this will stop work becoming mixed up
• At the end of each day make sure that your desk is clear. If something needs to be carried over to the next day, make a note/send yourself an email to remind you.