I am a believer in fearlessly changing course if you find that you have pursued something that turns out to be a mistake for you. This is especially true of work and careers.

In fact, if you’re ever looking to break the ice at a meeting, ask people to go around the room and name their college major. There’s probably a Russian major who longed to travel the world lurking in the accounting department, or a stiff-looking executive with a studio art degree hanging in his home office.

What is that executive to do if he looks at that home office every day and longs to toss the computer out of the window and turn the entire space into a workshop, complete with easels and watercolors?

This is generally the point in the article in which the reader is encouraged to “leave it all behind and leap into the future,” casting aside financial concerns and the impact on the family.

Do what you love and the money will come, right? It might. Up-end the lives of your loved ones and they will understand, because you owe it to yourself to be happy, correct? Perhaps.

Fearlessly changing course does not always look like that, and it doesn’t have to. Perhaps there is a non-profit looking for a business-savvy director with a heart for bringing the arts to underprivileged children.

In other words, those years as a business executive were hardly wasted – they helped to bring you to where you are now, ready for the next step.

Perhaps instead of waiting for the courage to make a cataclysmic leap of faith, you should be looking for the change in course that has been right in front of you all along.

This article, by Shirlene Do, was published on Workshifting.com, and is made available here through their generosity in copyrighting their work with a Creative Commons license.  What is workshifting.com? As they say, “If you work out of coffee shops, hotels, airports and your home every bit as much as the office, workshifting.com is for you.“

Lessons Learned From Workshifting

My husband and I both work at non-profit companies and don’t make a lot of money. When our daughter was born, we knew there was no way we could afford daycare, so I convinced my boss to allow me to work part-time in the office and part-time from home. To my surprise, she agreed, and everyone thought I was incredibly lucky. My friends and family thought I had it made. I had visions of happily-working-away-in-my-pajamas dancing in my head.

Unfortunately, my romantic notions of working from home were short-lived. In my experience, working from home was a lot harder than working in the office. This is especially true when you have a demanding toddler fighting for your attention day in and day out. There were many days working at home when I yearned to be back in the office again to actually get some work done.

Somehow I survived the year through a lot of trial and error. Then my husband got promoted. His promotion meant a change in our schedules when turned me into the main caregiver for our daughter. I thought I would have to resign from my job, until my boss surprised me again and agreed to allow me to work from home full-time. Although I knew I was lucky to have a boss that valued my work and trusted me enough to let me work from home–and full-time, no less–I knew that double the hours could mean double the trouble for me in terms of juggling full-time workshifting with full-time motherhood. However, three simple lessons I have learned from working at home over the past year will be a strong foundation for my success in this upcoming year…and beyond.

Working in your pajamas is overrated. Showering and brushing your teeth are not.

Don’t get me wrong, working in my pajamas felt extremely luxurious the first couple of weeks. Then slacking off on showering and brushing my teeth came next. Working in bed was the natural progression, followed by falling asleep next to my laptop in bed. Working in your pajamas may work for some people, but I had to accept that it did not work for me. It made me feel lazy and unfocused. I needed to start my day getting ready as if I were going to the office–on a casual Friday, of course. This act of getting ready prepared my mind and body for work. At my desk. With clean teeth and hair.

Having a set routine is imperative, no matter what your friends and family think.

A friend once said to me, “So, how does it feel to be a lady of leisure?” It goes without saying that that friend doesn’t have kids. Many people think I just lounge around all day because I “work from home”–wink, wink–when, in fact, I have to create a very detailed and exact schedule for my days in order to be productive, and efficient in that productivity. I stick to a set routine so that I can get my work done and still have time for the other aspects of my life, including a little leisure, yes. So, when a friend calls to hang out during a time that I’m supposed to be working, I politely decline.

There’s a time for work and a time for play.

This is probably the hardest lesson learned because it involves that tricky little monster. No, not my toddler! I’m talking about guilt–guilt about working while my daughter whines for my attention. This was the single biggest hindrance to my productivity when I first started workshifting. I couldn’t handle the guilt! To make matters worse, often times my daughter merely wanted me to sit on the floor next to her while she played. I finally learned that I had to draw a line for both our good. So, I break up my day, alternating work and play. When we play, we play hard. But when it’s time to work, I work hard and let her learn to play on her own. This is still a lesson we’re both learning each day.

Of course, there were many other lessons I learned over the past year, and I’m sure many more lessons are waiting to be learned over the coming year. I look forward to sharing more with you here.

If you had to narrow it down, what are the three single most important lessons you’ve learned while workshifting?

This article, by Matt Martin, was published on Workshifting.com, and is made available here through their generosity in copyrighting their work with a Creative Commons license.  What is workshifting.com? As they say, “If you work out of coffee shops, hotels, airports and your home every bit as much as the office, workshifting.com is for you.“

If that sounds like heaven to you, or you are already living out that non-traditional work arrangement dream,  WorkHerWay highly recommends that you visit Workshifting.com for information and inspiration.

How many times has it happened to you? Computer crashed. Kid sick so you can’t make it into the office. Car won’t start.

I have said it before, life happens, so you should try to make your organization as prepared as possible to keep moving forward when you are thrown that curve ball. In the post above, I talked about protecting your data but there are many pieces to this puzzle so lets turn our attention to your most precious asset, your people.

A common thought that goes through many organizations is that people need to come into the office in order to work. One of the problems with this line of thinking is that by tying your staff to a physical location you are putting all of your eggs into one basket. If the building burns, or if your staff cannot make it into the office, you have a high potential that their work day will be interrupted at best and at worst days/weeks could be a complete loss.

How can you combat this? Set your people free!

Studies have shown that by allowing your team to workshift, it makes for a happier and more productive staff. Best Buy’s ROWE  program shows how to allow your people to focus on what is important. Its also good sign that big business is starting to find out that you don’t have to be in the office to get real work done.

Some interesting stats from Telework.Gov:
•    Federal agencies have 102,900 employees that are teleworking
•    64% of those employees were teleworking relatively frequently (either 1-2 days a week, or 3 or more days a week)
•    Office coverage and management resistance are considered the largest barriers to implementation

The federal government is starting to catch the workshifting religion and more companies like Best Buy are starting to see the benefits of having a focused workforce working where they feel comfortable and more productive.

Computer crashed? No problem, many workshifting tools turns the computer into a dumb terminal, all of your data is stored online. Kids sick? Once the children are tended to and resting, your employee simply returns to their home office and they are back up to speed. A real disaster occurs? Your team can be home with their families, your data is dispersed so it is safe, and they have their everyday tools on hand to pick up the pieces.

What do you think? How do you keep your organization nimble?

A new acronym has been shaking up the workplace over the last few years – ROWE – which stands for Results-Only Work Environment.  The concept seeks to demolish the decades-old business concept that equates physically being at work with productivity. 

Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson (who came up with the idea) created ROWE to promote a workplace based solely on results.  Best Buy Co. took this idea and ran with it.  At the end of 2007 all 4,000 staffers working at its corporate headquarters were on ROWE and starting in February 2008, the new work environment became an official part of their recruiting pitch and orientation for new hires.  The company is so excited about the concept, they even formed a subsidiary called CultureRX to help other companies go clock-less.

According to the CultureRX website, in a ROWE work environment, people do their jobs whenever they want, just as long as the work gets done.  With ROWE:

• There is no need for schedules
• Nobody focuses on “how many hours did you work?”
• Nobody feels overworked, stressed out or guilty
• Work is not a place you go, it’s something you do
• There’s no judgment on how people spend their time

A BusinessWeek article  explains that Best Buy Co. tracks performance metrics to ensure productivity in the new culture is headed in the right direction.  So far, results include a decrease in employee turnover and, surprise, an increase in productivity.

ROWE is now a global movement that is based on the simple truth that people want to excel and deliver on the job, and, use technology to free them from only handling work based solely in an office location from 8am – 5pm. 

Will the old ways of managing work and people continue, or, will this new concept take hold in companies around the world?  I vote for ROWE.  What’s happening where you work?  Type a comment and let others know what’s happening in your workplace.

Here are some helpful resources

 
The number of career changes people make during their lifetime ranges anywhere from three to around seven times.  Regardless of how many times you change careers, it can be a positive and energizing experience, or a slow and sometimes painful one – it all depends on how you approach it.  If you’re looking to make a career change, take your time, do your homework and find out if a change is right for you.

Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D. suggests a 10-Step Plan to Career Change and believes that if you follow this plan you will be on a successful path toward career change.  His plan includes the following steps:

• Assessment of likes and dislikes
• Researching new careers
• Leveraging your transferable skills
• Updating your skills through training and education
• Networking
• Gaining experience in a new field
• Finding a mentor
• Changing in or out
• Refreshing yourself on job hunting basics
• Remaining flexible

Another great resource is 50+ Tools to Change Your Career Path, located on the Bootstrapper blog, a resource for small business owners operating on a shoestring budget.  You’ll find more than 50 tools to “offer assistance for finding the best career for you, and how you can get there.”  The tools are broken into five key areas:

• Assessment
• Career Exploration
• Advice
• Getting (Re)Hired
• Transitioning

No matter what your situation, take the time to explore what you really want in a career and conduct adequate research to help find you the job you’ve always dreamed about.  Happy transitioning!

A wake-up call is a resounding signal received that change is necessary in your life. Often we get this type of call when a crisis or deeply challenging situation has emerged.
Clients ask me, “What is crisis in our lives? How can we tell we’re heading into crisis, versus simply going through a really bad patch?”

What are the signs of “breakdown,” as I tend to call it? As defined in the Webster’s dictionary, a “crisis” is:

• An emotionally significant event or radical change of status in a person’s life (as in a midlife crisis)
• The decisive moment (as in a literary plot)
• The turning point for better or worse, as in an acute disease or fever
• A paroxysmal attack of pain, distress, or disordered function
• An unstable or crucial time or state of affairs in which a decisive change is impending; especially: one with the distinct possibility of a highly undesirable outcome (as in a financial crisis)
• A situation that has reached a critical phase

Clearly, we’re taking about a “no turning back” situation – a time in which a re-evaluation is called for. The definition of “crisis” used in my new book Breakdown, Breakthrough (Berrett-Koehler, Nov. 2008, www.breakdownbreakthrough.com) pertains to the occurrence of a deeply troubling, heart-wrenching, or grueling event or series of events that brings you to a recognition, finally and irrevocably, that change must occur now. Crisis pushes you to your knees, and stretches open your awareness that to repeat this experience (or this feeling, event, or situation) again in the same way would be close to intolerable.
A wake-up call in the professional arena means that you suddenly know beyond a shadow of a doubt that how you work, what you work on, who you work with or who you are when you work, and where you work — these elements are causing damage to you, your life, your body, and your spirit. A wake-up call often seems to strike out of the blue, yet we rarely get to this point without some warning signs along the way.

Crisis may look different for each person, but there is one unifying theme that defines it: Crisis wakes up the individual who faces it. This wake-up call demands our attention, and often leads us to have a “breakdown” or compels us to “break down” once and for all what isn’t working, and shed it. Crisis reveals that significant revision in life or work is required immediately.
If you’ve had any of the following thoughts or considered these actions in the past six months, you may be heading towards a wake-up call, and now is the time to hear it, and embrace what it’s trying to tell you.
Have you ever:

•  Allowed money and financial “benefits” to keep you in an abusive relationship at home or at work?
• Called in sick just because you couldn’t face what was on your plate that day?
• Flirted with sabotaging the work of your boss or colleague because s/he’s been so awful to you?
• Wondered to yourself, “What the heck is the purpose of what I do?”
• Snuck out of the office, and lied about why you are leaving, so that you could see your child’s soccer game (or performance, concert, etc.)
• Realized that you can’t remember the last time you did anything for yourself?
• Blamed yourself for “not fitting in” and feeling so alone in your current situation?
• Believed you might have a nervous breakdown just getting done what has to each day for work and for home?
• Fantasized frequently about another field(s) or area that would be very exciting to focus on?
• Sensed that you are missing important aspects of your family’s life, and will never get them back?
• Thought to yourself, “I don’t want to do this one more day.”

If you’ve had any of the above experiences and thoughts, you’re most likely heading for a major turning point in the road, and it’s time to grab control of the wheel.

Is a wake up call on its way to you?

If so, embrace it. Change is vital and good. Take this opportunity to explore your needs and wants fully, and realize they are not to be ignored. Uncover some potential new directions that excite you. You don’t have to know the “hows” right now. Just flesh out one area you’d deeply like to explore, then take a step to research it and test it out. The key is to sense how your energy feels when you consider and examine this new direction. If you feel good, then keep moving towards exploring it.

The first step on the path of aligning your life to your satisfaction is realizing that you’re stuck only if you perceive yourself to be. It’s never too late to reinvent yourself or your work (trust me – I’ve done it!), and expand your skills and abilities to reach toward a new direction that represents a better fit.

After all, aren’t you worth having a career and life you love? I know you are.

Women don’t necessarily want to work less. They just want more control over their hours.

That’s what career coach Nancy Collamer told me, and I think she’s right. DivineCaroline has profiled many career women for a regular feature called “My Gig.” A handful, mostly women working for themselves, have found that sought-after flexibility.

For wallpaper installer Elizabeth Johnson, flexibility means she has time to be an artist and take long vacations when the travel bug bites. For Jasmin Zorlu, a milliner, it means sleeping late occasionally. Children’s clothing designer Stephanie Scarpulla says one of the best things about her job is picking her daughters up from school every day at 3 p.m.

Meet these three woman and a few more with flexible jobs—and find out how they made it where they are.

Hat Designer: Jasmin Zorlu

Writer: Denise Vega

Self-employed Attorney: Kate Lyon

Wallpaper Installer: Elizabeth Johnson

Wedding Photographer: Andi Hatch

Children’s Clothing Designer: Stephanie Scarpulla

Author Caroline Wilbert is the Career and Money Editor at DivineCaroline.com.

Sometimes when we work with others, we must end our partnerships.  Like any divorce or separation, it can be tricky both legally and emotionally.  In the development of an idea or a product, there are no children but there is this third thing, this creation that has sprung from the commingling of two minds.  How do you divide something that has its own being-ness in half? 

There are plenty of lawyers who will talk about the legal aspects of separating and dividing up assets but in this article, this article focuses on the more personal aspects. 

It’s in my mind because recently, I had to change the nature of my relationship with someone that I’d been in partnership with for over 3 years and have known for almost 20.  Since I had spent much of the past year filled with irritation at the sight of him, I was expecting this change to be a relief.  I was surprised to find grief instead.

The partnership was clearly not working and this decision has forced me to look at how I operate in partnership – who do I choose and how do I handle problems.  For a lot of personal reasons, he was unresponsive.  He’d agree to deliver certain results by a certain time and months would go by.  A development process that should have taken 2 – 3 months took 12.  I had become so frustrated that I couldn’t even address the issue with him. 

Although it is easy to blame others in this scenario, the problem was clearly mine.  Although I had tried to call him to the mat when he first missed deadlines, I soon gave up. He was always apologetic but clearly unchangeable. Although I fantasized about walking away, I didn’t, wanting to keep my hand in “just in case”, just in case the project got sold, just in case he changed, just in case some miracle of nature might happen.  It didn’t.  And energy that I could have put into something more fulfilling got wasted.

I had allowed this and then, instead of taking responsibility and either doing what needed to be done myself or moving on, I got to judge him in return.  This did not in any way move our project forward.  What a waste of time.

If you are currently developing a project with someone who is not operating at your level of commitment, ask yourself these questions.

- How does this person reinforce your beliefs – that people won’t help you, that you’re in it alone, etc?  (Even if you perceive this person as not “your” choice, they are still in it with you so ask this question anyway) 

- How are you enabling their excuses and why?

- How can you address your dissatisfaction without judgment and nip this now before it devolves even more?

GOOD LUCK!

I used to dread Sunday nights. Starting around 7 pm, I would begin to get a headache, an upset stomach, just a general disease emotionally, spiritually, and physically. My symptoms weren’t a result of something I ate or a side effect of any medication, they were a response to thinking about what I was going to have to face on Monday morning: a job that drained my spirit.

What awful job was I facing Monday through Friday? I was a fifth grade teacher. And I was a good teacher—I liked teaching, I liked helping people learn, I enjoyed seeing people grow in confidence and knowledge, and I loved being in the role of change agent. But with all the things I loved related to being a teacher—there were too many things on the flip side that just didn’t line up with my true values, desired work style, and passion. I felt stifled, with no opportunities to grow as I needed. At the end of the school year, I decided that I would not return to teaching. It was both a hard and easy decision at the same time. On one hand I knew that I couldn’t successfully live another year like doing the same thing. On the other hand, I considered how much time and money I had invested on the education and certification process. I had even relocated to a new state to begin my teaching career.

Since then, I have found myself at that crossroad a few more times, trying to decide whether to stay or go. Each decision required lots of careful reflection and exploration as to what my next move should be. As a coach, I have clients that find themselves at the same crossroad regardless of age, experience or income. In most cases they know it is time for a change—they just ignore the signs, choosing instead to struggle with depression, low self-esteem, self-pitying attitudes, and to employ unhealthy coping strategies. If you are at a crossroad, trying to validate the urge you feel to make a change, here are five signs to look for:

This article was originally published on Divine Caroline.

This article, by David Baeza, was published on Workshifting.com, and is made available here through their generosity in copyrighting their work with a Creative Commons license.  What is workshifting.com? As they say, “If you work out of coffee shops, hotels, airports and your home every bit as much as the office, workshifting.com is for you.“

If that sounds like heaven to you, or you are already living out that non-traditional work arrangement dream,  WorkHerWay highly recommends that you visit Workshifting.com for information and inspiration.

Recently I had two more team members that started workshifting full time.  One moved to San Francisco and the other to Oregon.  This can be a little bit like tearing off a Band-Aid.  The sting of reality can hit quickly.
 
The transition from a fully supported employee, with things such as a creative culture, big brain peers, office chatter and laughter, a gym, a kitchen, stellar IT support, etc., to a coffee shop or home office, can make for a rough landing.  As a manager, it’s important that the person making the transition understand that it’s not always as glamorous as it appears.
 
What I have found really helps is to team them up with other remote employees or at least make the introductions.  In the case of the San Francisco workshifter, she has a counterpart in the city and we happen to have an office there as well.  Based on her personality type, she should make a very easy transition.
 
For the Oregon workshifter, it’s just the opposite.  No counterparts, no office.  In this case, it’s worth it to take the time to let them know about the challenges people can face when they make the transition out of the nest.  The following withdrawal symptoms are fairly common:
 
1.  Lacking a sense of team and comradery
2.  Fear that the lack of “face time” will hinder their career
3.  Adjusting to conference call or web conferencing etiquette (inability to raise hand)
4.  Missing the corporate culture
5.  Lack of IT resources
 
To help with the transition, it always good to explain that the symptoms are normal and can vary depending on the person.  I know I sound like an advertisement for the latest anti-depressant, but it’s true.  The best thing to do is to take the time to understand what type of person they are, and give them what they need.  It could be a call once a day or a regular video call so you can add a human element.  Scheduling regular visits to the office, even if they don’t or can’t make it, are very important.  It says to the workshifter that I value the relationship.
 
On that note, the importance of “face time” can’t be underemphasized.  Depending on the person’s level or job responsibility, it’s good to visit the mother ship at least once a quarter.  If for nothing else, to reconnect with your peer group at a personal level.  Because at the end of the day, its all about trust, and the relationships that are being built.
 
What’s your advice for someone about to leave the Corporate nest?