Homepreneurs Can Stay Sane With These 3 Tips

Guest article from tvtraydesk.com.

Photo by Ken Tomita

Working as a digital entrepreneur can have many upsides: you set your own hours, you can work in your comfy pants, and you can care for your young ones instead of sending them to daycare!

However, the work-from-home lifestyle can become pretty overwhelming. While remote work is overall healthier for us, the lifestyle isn’t without its drawbacks. Here’s how you can avoid getting sucked into a round-the-clock work cycle.

1. Establishing Concrete Office Hours

When bills are due can be tempting to pick up a few extra hours – especially when freelancing from your living room. However, having steady clock-in and clock-out hours can make a major difference in your mental state and productivity.

Frequent overtime has been linked to high blood pressure and anxiety, to name a few. And it can be far too easy to work overtime when your office is in your living room! When there’s no building to leave at the end of the day, or timecard to stamp on your way out, it can sometimes feel like your day never truly ends.

By establishing solid start and end times to your day, you’ll have a much more stable work schedule, and far better work-life balance!

2. Getting Fresh Air and Sunlight Regularly

Photo by Jens Mahnke

Needing a “breath of fresh air” isn’t just a saying. Getting outside and enjoying some sunlight are quite important for mental health! Studies have shown that even just a few minutes outside can work wonders in reducing stress levels and regulating one’s mood.

It can be hard for remote workers to take time to get some fresh air during the workday. When your office contains a couch and kitchen, there’s no need to go out to get lunch, or go for a brief drive just to have some rest. It can be all too easy to grab a snack and take your lunch break in the living room. However, make the effort a couple of times a week to take a brisk walk or read outside during your break. Your body and mind will thank you.

3. Utilizing Slow Cookers

Working from home often means being glued to your screen to get everything done- from meetings to paperwork to personal errands. Those that work from home may be tempted to cram more tasks into a day, which can make it harder to have nutritious, filling meals. But don’t turn to protein bars and fast food just yet!

A slow cooker can be set early in the morning, and timed to be ready by lunchtime or dinnertime. By having the slow cooker working in the background, you’ll still have a hot, healthy meal waiting for you come breaktime.

Conclusion

Photo by  Anastasia  Shuraeva

While working from home can be a great way to balance work and life, a different kind of balancing act is needed to maintain a healthy, active lifestyle. Keeping these tips in mind can help you manage everything without forgetting yourself in the process.

6 Resume Updates That Will Help You Land That Job

woman smiling holding glass mug sitting beside table with MacBook

One of the most important things that go into getting a job is your resume. Your resume needs to show off a number of different things to illustrate to a hiring manager that you can do the job. The importance of a resume cannot be overstated.

Source: themogulmom.com

However, sometimes simply listing your skills and experience isn’t enough. There are some crucial resume updates that you should be making in order to give yourself the best chance of success.

Whether you are a single mother, a parent juggling your job search with childcare or a student fresh from university, these resume updates can help you out. Without any further ado, let’s look at a few resume updates that will help you land that job.

Change Up the Format with a Template

One thing that could potentially be holding your resume back without you even knowing is your template. There exist hundreds of different resume templates out there, and each may be the best choice in a certain situation. Take time to look and see if your resume is as optimized as it could be.

Unfortunately, completely reformatting your resume or making up a template by scratch isn’t always easy. This is especially true if you are a busy mom or someone who is not that technically savvy. Thankfully, there is a solution. If you visit ResumeBuild, you will find a resume maker resource that can help you choose and discover a new format for your resume with ease. It can also help you out with great examples of how to best design your resume.

Keep the Most Impressive Things Above the Fold

When looking at a resume, either physical or digital, people’s eyes start at the top of the page or screen. As a result, you should keep your most impressive feats and skills above the fold. This essentially means keep it high enough on the resume that people don’t need to scroll down or turn a flipped page to see it.

The global attention span appears to be shrinking, so if you can’t wow the hiring manager with the initial part of your resume, they are likely to look elsewhere. Keep this in mind when deciding how to organize the info on your resume.

Shorten it Up

How to shorten your resume

As mentioned before, people have less patience than ever before. Many hiring managers simply don’t have the patience to read through a resume that is three, four or five pages long. If you want to give your resume the best chance of being seen and fully-read, consider keeping it short.

Generally, one page for a resume is recommended, with two being the maximum in many cases. If you are struggling to shrink your resume, be sure to look online as there are several great examples of professional one-page resumes. Or, perhaps you can also submit a CV, which is a more detailed and thorough look at your education, experience, and skills.

Provide Numbers and Data if Possible

While it is great to list off your skills and experience, many hiring managers want to see a little more. In particular, many of them want to learn exactly how you were able to help your last company succeed. Any time you include a general skill or type of experience, try to provide some type of data or numbers to back it up.

For example, instead of saying that you “helped train new staff”, you could say that you “educated and mentored hundreds of new staff members through a training course that I created”. Anything that can give more detail to your claims or skills will be a welcomed addition to your resume.

Use Important Keywords in Your Resume

In any job description or posting, you will likely notice several different keywords that appear quite frequently. Instead of simply seeing these and moving on, consider adding them to your resume. Of course, you shouldn’t overdo it, but a few select keywords here and there can help signal to the hiring manager that you can be what they are looking for.

In addition to helping you target your resume to a specific job, it can also help your resume get noticed. Many companies use applicant tracking systems that automatically sift through resumes based on their content. So if you include some of the keywords in your resume, there is a good chance it will get noticed by the system.

Use White Space Successfully

When creating a resume, white space is your friend. It can help break up sections, as well as make it easier to skim. Most people read resumes a few seconds at a time, so if it is a wall of text, it will be much harder to get through.

This helps to keep your resume simple and elegant, as well as very easy to read. Trying to fit too much information on one page can make a resume look cluttered and overloaded with information.

In conclusion, keep in mind the advice given here and be sure that the resume updates you decide to implement will be able to help you land that job.