A few years ago, I attended a leadership program. Most of those programs are filled with clichéd and forgettable activities. But one of the exercises stood out. We had to summarize our entire life motto in only seven words. We couldn’t use six. We couldn’t use eight. It had to be exactly seven. This was a challenge because picking one sentence that summarized everything you stood for felt daunting. However, after a couple of days of hard thinking, I came up with mine: “Family ... Read More
14 Tips for Designing a Highly Productive Home Office (GTD Friendly)
Update June 2020: I published this post many years ago, and my home office setup has changed since then. However, most of the main design principles are still the same, and I think you'll find them helpful (I also updated some of the links to the products I currently use). ********** I recently moved to a new apartment where I (finally!) got my own room to set up as a home office. I’ve been a hardcore follower of GTD for quite a while, so I wanted to make sure I take the lessons learned over ... Read More
Review of Mack’s Ultra Soft Foam Earplugs [Video]
Those are the earplugs I use when I'm working in my home office (Mack's Ear Care Ultra Soft Foam Earplugs). They are phenomenal for tuning out any ambient noises and come in a 50 pair box. Check out the video to see my review of them. Highly recommended! Learn more: Link to Earplugs on Amazon Read my "Influencing Virtual Teams" Amazon best selling book Subscribe to my YouTube Channel Follow my Facebook Page ... Read More
The best spill proof coffee cup (that you can’t knock over)
I love coffee. And I happen to drink a lot of it while working next to my laptop (which isn't too smart, I know). So I've been looking for a good spill proof coffee cup for a while now. I’ve had a few close encounters over the last few years that almost completely ruined my PC. In fact, I had to throw out my external keyboard once because it drowned in my cafe latte. So the other day, when I came across an awesome spill proof coffee cup, I had to buy it. It’s called the Mighty Mug ... Read More
How to Organize Your Home Writing Workplace [Infographic]
The infographic below from OmniPapers provides a cool cheat sheet about how you should organize your writing workspace. Although some of those tips are fairly straightforward, the infographic does give you some reminders and ideas about how you should organize your writing area for your comfort & health. Click on the infographic below for a larger version. Hope you found this helpful. Cheers, Hassan P.S. If you're looking for more hardcore tips to organize your entire ... Read More
A cheap standing desk solution
I don’t want to die. I sit down for 12+ hours a day in my home office. Sitting for that long every day is definitely going to kill me. And the fact that I binge on junk food every now and then makes things worse. (I have a sweet tooth – can’t help it) This standing desk craze isn’t some fad. Just google “sitting kills you” and read all the science-based research on this stuff. There’s study after study after study proving that "sitting is the new smoking." To make things worse, sitting ... Read More
Webinar Replay: Building Trust in Your Virtual Team
I had a great conversation with a team of experts about building and increasing trust in your virtual team. Here is the webinar replay if you missed it (click play on the YouTube video below to watch it). I highly recommend you watch it, especially if you work as part of a virtual team or manage a remote workforce. Dr. Howard B. Esbin of PlayPrelude, and Lisette Sutherland, of Collaboration Superpowers hosted the webinar on Google Hangouts. The panel also included Alexey ... Read More
Why Work from Home & The Perfect Home Office [INFOGRAPHIC]
The folks at TinyPrints released this cool infographic about why you should work from home, and how the perfect home office should look like. The infographic highlights some nice tips and statistics, including having a separate room for your home office and outlining what the business savings are for a company that allows its employees to work from home. Click on the infographic below for a larger version. Hope you found this helpful! Cheers, Hassan P.S. - If ... Read More