The key to multiple streams of income

A step-by-step approach will pay off.

Working at home has been a great source of income for me. My motivation for posting on this blog is to ensure that those of you reading this will be able to draw from the pleasures of working at home, apart from making a few bucks too!

The work-at-home option has become more attractive and is relatively easier to attain nowadays. There was a period when just typing work at home jobs brought up a list of scams (they still do, but at a much lower level).

One of the key things to develop is multiple streams of income. Isn't that ironic? After all, we want to work at home as it gives the 'multiple' streams of income in the first place. Now we are looking at multiple 'multiple' streams. The more the merrier, I guess.

There are a couple of things I want to share with you here before I bolt.

The first one is another one of the oDesk type sites. It is called Team Store by Exvo.com. I've heard great things about it and should be on board soon. I am already crazy busy with the work I've received from the oDesks and Elances of the world.

The second thing is to go to this website 'I will Teach You To Be Rich' and subscribe for the e-mails. He is really my virtual guru Ramit Sethi. There were a couple of webinars that he recently did. All for free, mind you. It was the perfect advice on how to make more money by being strategic about generating streams of income. In his case: consulting, book royalties, product sales, etc.

Other than that, I have now been busy learning C++. Expect a post on a good book on either the technical book club or the technology book club or maybe both. Programming in C makes me see Benjamins already! Anyway, programming is such a complement to any career, especially mine.

I hope you reading this post brought you that much closer to Internet riches! So long for now.

Slam dunking your work-at-home career

What you need to know

There is a wealth of information on this site to go out and get started making extra money on the side working at home. What I want to do with this post is to give more and hopefully new information about the gold mine that working at home is becoming. Working at home is best pursued part-time as it is great additional income to a day job.

Furthermore, people who desire more money can make bank in the weekend too. The advantage is that you are never unemployed even if you get laid off because you can simply step up your working at home game. It has great benefits for employers too. The online workplaces that I am about to introduce to you are the same as Elance and oDesk.

Freelancer.com

Out of the 2.3 million projects that have been posted on the site, the most popular ones are copywriting, website design, SEO and graphic design. There have been other skills that have been demanded from time to time such as biotechnology, industrial design, aerospace engineering and astrophysics.  

VWorker

Considering that 54 percent of traditional office workers "sleepwalk" during their work day, it makes sense for employers to go to VWorker to get their work done productively. There is so much more businesses, workers and the country as a whole will save on because of sites like VWorker.

Guru.com

You are not alone in your search for a lucrative work at home career. Guru.com was created to help out the approximately 25 million Americans who work as independent professionals. Moreover, companies love these free agents as they increase the chance of profitability. Guru.com will add dimensions to the work at home business model with its version of the 'water cooler' and job matching among other thing.

Step up to the plate and be a part of the wave of the future!

Freelancing websites

Elance and oDesk are great ways to make money and build your career.

I put up a big post on this blog a while ago about different sites that can be utilized to make some extra money and start working at home. There are two more sites that you should be aware of: Elance and oDesk.

These are very legitimate websites where you get to do meaningful work rather than something like HubPages or Helium which are just content websites that have ads on them. I built a lot of financial modeling and Microsoft Excel experience on oDesk which helped to greatly developed in demand skills in the workplace and put money in my pocket.

I must say that it is not easy to successfully bid and receive an assignment on Elance and oDesk, but with some patience it is definitely possible to work on projects that you will enjoy. It can be tempting to take on any work that comes your way. But this is the wrong approach if you want to make the maximum use of Elance and oDesk.

The trick is to wait a while and be selective about the projects you sign up for. Remember that this is a supplemental job where you’re making extra income. Don’t quit your day job!

If you’ve done some good work for a certain company or individual on Elance and oDesk, don’t hesitate to ask them to recommend you when you apply for a job that was related to the work you did. Definitely, add the name of the company and the meaningful work you did on your resume.

Building an online brand

Want help with your online brand? Here are some tips for you.

There is nothing more important than having a great online brand when it comes to working at home. A solid online brand will give you more credibility and maybe even boost your fan base if you’re seeking that at all.

The other thing is that when you're building your work-at-home career, the online brand is what is going to attract potential employers and clients. The best way to have a solid online brand is to be active online on social media such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Google+. You don’t necessarily have to use social media, but it definitely helps. There are, of course, pros and cons.

One of the first things that I was told when it comes to building an online brand is to develop a niche. This makes you an expert in a certain area which will attract viewers. If you have any credentials or certifications that make you look good be sure to mention it. This is not the time to be modest.

The Klout score and Kred score are great ways to monitor your effort at building an online brand. The most important thing I believe is to have fun and try to maintain integrity across all the social media platforms that you use.

For me, building an online brand was all about having a more gratifying and precise set of results that come up when people look me up on Google. I have met many wonderful people who I otherwise never would have because of a strong online presence.

HubPages: A great way to make a passive income at home

A detailed look at HubPages

If you haven't done so already, I encourage you to go and sign up for an account at HubPages. It will definitely prove to be a profitable move. I opened an account there a few months ago and have already seen my earning increase consistently every month. The more work you put in, the more earnings the site generates for you. It is a great site for making passive income and that is why I had it number one on my  'Great Sites to make money online' post on this blog not too long ago.

The thing about working at home and HubPages is that it enables you to be able to do something you enjoy in the peace of your own home and you can catch up on current events like the opening ceremony of the London Olympics, for instance. No need to worry about your boss or supervisor looking over your shoulder!

The website was actually launched back in 2006 and I am kicking myself for not being a part of what is one of Silicon Valley's hottest companies sooner. There are so many different things that users can do on the site and a variety of ways to make money like Amazon.com, Google AdSense and eBay. I have used plenty of revenue-sharing websites and I am very ecstatic about this one.

I encourage you to go ahead and read up as much as you can about HubPages and the tutorials and guides in the revenue-sharing website. That is why I put up this post to get more people to go and start making money right now off HubPages.

More tips for working at home successively

Some things that address psychology.

I thought I would address some issues here that will help you improve your work/life balance while working at home. Working at home obviously has its luxuries, but one must not forgot to maintain a healthy lifestyle while making those dollars from the comfort of your home.

The importance of sleep cannot be underestimated and the effects of sleep deprivation can be pretty devastating. It is essential to get a good night’s sleep and tips like taking a warm bath will help a telecommuter to avoid insomnia that I experience from time to time.

I am a person who likes to be self aware and I agree with Chinese philosopher Lao-Tse that it is indeed beneficial to know oneself. I also learned that it was better to reflect than to ruminate. Choking under pressure was something I used to do myself when faced with deadlines and trying to keep the whole working at home thing profitable. I have combated this problem by using certain techniques. For instance, listening to classical music helps me cope with the pressure. This works for me and you need to find what works for you!

Eating a balanced diet and doing so on a regular basis is important. Lately, I had been so caught up with what I have been doing, that I haven’t been paying much attention to what I have been eating. It is very essential to eat at regular times and try to get those veggies, fruits and other boring food down your throat in addition to the usual delights like meat and desset.

Life has its ebbs and flows and so does working at home. There is going to be trying times and then happier ones too. I hope this post gave you more insights into what working at home is like and how you can get more out of your own experience.

The problem isn't what happens when people work from home!

Slate recently reported on a new study that shows what people "really do" when they work from home: 43 percent said they have watched a television show while on the clock, 35 percent have done household chores and 28 percent have cooked dinner. My reaction: big deal! Let's turn the tables and look at what really happens in the office!

The deep-seated corporate prejudice against telecommuting is based in the belief that people in an office work at (say) a 95 percent efficiency. And there is some truth to the belief that all your coworkers serve as eyes peering over your shoulder, keeping you honest. Few people would feel free to bust out a television and watch a "House, M.D." re-run in the middle of the work day if they were at the office.
 
But having worked in corporate office environments for about 20 years, and having worked from home for the last 6-7, I can tell you: it's a lot more efficient to work from home.

A huge percentage of office time is taken up by chatting with coworkers. Whether they are at the coffee machine, walking down the hall, standing at your desk or sitting in the cubicle next to you, all of your coworkers want to chat, all the time. Not about anything work-related, either: heaven forbid. 

I am reminded of a strategy Scott Adams espoused in one of his Dilbert books: to avoid getting caught up in these endless hallway bull sessions, he would walk around carrying a handful of melting ice. "Can't talk, my ice is melting!" No one ever questioned WHY he was holding a handful of ice, mind you. That is what office life is like.
 
When you're not being endlessly distracted by your coworkers, you're distracting yourself by reading and replying to e-mail, checking Facebook, doing today's Sudoku puzzle or even just staring into space while ostensibly looking over a spreadsheet.
 
Meanwhile, those of us who work at home know that if we can get all our work done, we can watch TV! And lo: the work gets done faster, and it gets done better, due to the lack of distractions. It's funny how, if you treat a person like an adult, they start to behave like an adult. They make decisions about how to spend their time, and those decisions - more often than not - are valid and reasonable.
 
The fact that the corporate world hasn't embraced telecommuting is just another example of how America's corporate culture is as toxic as it is doomed.
 

The Luxuries of Working at Home. Part 2

Think differently.

In today’s world with Facebook and Wikipedia, there are a lot of things that can be picked up by surfing the Internet. It is not the same as when our parents were in school and how they approached building relationships and acquiring knowledge.

As I said in the earlier post, a lot of people find working at home a little bit amusing and even my roommate has ridiculed how I am holed up in my room working on various things. But I don’t really care about that as I have learned so much more holed up in my room than he will ever do working in his dead-end job.

Facebook has made it easy to see what people are up to and you really don’t have to go to events anymore to check them out. This is all very time saving. The same way LinkedIn has enabled us to connect with people we otherwise would never have talked to.

Wikipedia is a sensation and it is how I mostly educate myself these days on a variety of different topics. Additionally, websites of universities and companies have opened my eyes to all sorts of different possibilities and enlightened me about many things I’ve wanted to know like scholarships and profiles of people I want to be like. These days, an individual can vicariously find out what life at Harvard or the University of Michigan is like being simply visiting the events page of their respective websites.

I think it is about time people start to embrace this change and really welcome the whole idea of working at home and how wonderful it really is. Sometimes, I wonder if the naysayers are just annoyed about the luxuries that working at home brings and how they are unable to enjoy them!

Great sites to make money online

I’ve tried some of these and others I have researched and they do pay.

Hubpages

I feel like this site has a lot of potential to make you some good side income. I have been looking at the community and reading the articles and I have seen some money from my own output. It sounds like a wonderful opportunity to make money through online writing.

Info Barrel

I haven’t tried this one yet because I am so busy with Hubpages right now. But it seems to the same as Hubpages according to many reviews that I have read.

Squidoo

Another make money online writing site! The interesting thing about this site is that its referral program allows you to make $5 when you invite someone and they make at least $15.

Helium

I have been using this for a few years now and it does provide a pretty good income stream, but it doesn’t seem to have the potential that Hubpages has.

Triond

I’ve heard great things about this site too even though I haven’t really been able to get as much out of it as I would have liked. But at the end of the day, I guess it is all about creating some really great content and being able to promote it that matters most.

There is a longer list of sites to make money from the Internet and there are a lot of them that I haven’t tried yet. But I am hoping to so in the future. Feel free to check them out and let me know what you think and the results you obtained.

 

The luxuries of working at home

People who look down on working at home are so wrong.

With oDesk and Elance and all the other places that has made it easy to do some telecommuting these days, working at home has become such an attractive option for many across the globe. Most people like myself are working from home in addition to their regular 9 to 5.

I know working at home is looked upon as taboo and I definitely can see that angle because I have a lot of people who are very old-fashioned around me. My parents don't approve of this work, which they feel I won’t benefit from because there is no daily interaction with people -or so they think. Even my roommate who is much older than me has a similar feeling about this whole idea of working at home.

But here is the good news. I am going to put all you people out there who are working at home or are hoping to do so one day, at ease by changing your mindset. The first thing is this: your life is not a resume!

How many times are we frowned upon when we are not doing something productive with our lives, as perceived by other people. The real estate mogul Donald Trump himself states in his many best-selling books that you don’t have to be doing something all the time and he cares more about someone who lies around all day and comes up with a million dollar idea than someone who works hard all the time and cannot think outside the box.

Working at home offers so many luxuries, especially if it allows you to be able to check out profiles of Internet entrepreneurs and prepare for that next big thing. Additionally, you get the time on your hands to go ahead and look for people who are like-minded on social networking sites such as LinkedIn and to educate yourself more on what you want to become.

The aim with working at home should not only be to supplement your income, but also look to develop a passive income stream and this is the real test.

 

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