Make Working From Home Work For You

If you are a WAHM, you may be looking for tips to make working from home work for you.  By the time I had begun working and making money from home, I had been a SAHM for over 10 years.  I had raised two kids in those 10 years, did about 1,000,000 loads of laundry, learned to make a meal in 15 minutes and had grocery shopping down to a science.  I thought that was what people were calling working from home, but I was very wrong!  Apparently when most folks talk about working from home, they are implying that you are making money doing so.  If that was the case, I was more like slave labor than a paid employee of the Hutchinson family.  Now that I am getting paid, I have found a few shortcuts that will make working from home a bit easier for you.  Here are a few:

Make Working From Home Work For You

  • Schedule: If you are going to make working from home successful, you must set a schedule and stick to it. This is difficult for many of us as part of the reason we chose to work from home was the freedom.  The problem with that is if you take too much freedom, you are working less and playing more.  Would you take an hour break at work to watch your favorite soap?  Well, you shouldn’t do that while working from home either.
  • Work Space: If you want to be a professional who works from home, you should have a work space that shows that.  Some of you may have a spare room you can turn into an office, or if you are like me, you don’t.  If you don’t have the luxury of a whole room to work in, create a small space.  My office is in my room and it is just a small little square, but I have everything I need to get through my day.
  • Define Working From Home: When I speak about working from home, I am referring to productive work that earns you an income.  I am not however talking bout doing laundry, making dinner, talking to the neighbor and running to the cleaners.  You must schedule your time for working from home and your homework as two separate issues, if you don’t, you will never get done the amount of work you need.
  • Short-Cuts: Whenever possible, find yourself some short cuts to make your work a little easier.  If there is a new gadget that would help you get your work done faster, by all means go get it!  If you have found some software that will cut your workload, then you should implement that into your job.  I recently found software you may have “heard” (foreshadow) of, but may not have tried.  Dragon software from Nuance Communications is the naturally speaking software that makes creating documents a whole lot easier!

Create Documents Faster

Easy To Learn Speech To Text Software

If you would have told me before you knew of a way to create documents faster, I would have been skeptical.  I mean, unless you have fingers like Dash from The Incredible, how could you make creating a document any faster?  Well, how would you feel about dictating your document out loud and having software put it into a document?  I know crazy right?  With Dragon, The Naturally Speaking software program, you are able to do just that!  I was sent a copy of Dragon ($99.00) and it is like a dream come true!  I honestly have cut my work load by at least 1/3, if not more.  I was surprised to learn that Dragon has been around for more than 15 years now.  If you have Dragon 11, you will be happy to know Dragon 12 is even faster and easier to use!  Dragon is really easy to set up and use, once you get the hang of it.  Here is a summary of what you do:

  • Install: Make sure you have a computer that can accommodate the software (Windows 7 and above) as well as the proper processor (1.66 GHz will do).  You will also need a DVD-ROM drive as well as a sound card that supports 15-bit recording.
  • Documents: Dragon is most known for its easy creation of documents in word programs like Microsoft Word and Open Office.  What you may not know is you can create a Power Point presentation or even surf the web with just a few words!   Dragon is designed to work for your creating email in programs like Gmail and Hotmail, as well as documents.  You can also post updates to Facebook, Tweet the latest news in your life or find recipes and other fun stuff in Pinterest.
  • Features: Dragon has the BestMatch V speech model to make recognizing your voice a breeze.  Dragon can also detect certain words or phrases you may use for future reference; it also has easy correction and editing options, volume control, on screen help and The Dragon Sidebar which puts important voice commands and tips in one location.  Dragon also makes correcting easier by using the most popular word or phrase choices as well as keeping words that are specific to you in memory.  So, if you were to write a letter to Honey Boo Boo each week, Dragon will remember her name for you.

When you first set up Dragon, it will take you through a thorough process of getting your voice recognizable to the software by asking you to read several lines in a story.  This does not take very long at all.  Once that is done, you are then taken on a tutorial that will help you learn to turn the mic on and off, and how to begin a sentence and paragraph.  Again, this is done in a matter of minutes, so you are not spending all day learning how to use it.  I probably spent a total of 30 minutes getting the lessons down before I was ready to try the program out.  I will admit it is a bit tricky to remember the different commands because you are not just saying words, as you must also tell Dragon when you are starting a sentence, adding punctuation, etc.  Once you have that down, you are ready to go and are using Dragon like a pro.  I love that Caitlin tried to trick Dragon into thinking she was me! Dragon is no dummy! It caught her right away!! I love that someone can’t just come in and start using Dragon and possibly compromising my work. This post would have normally taken me about an hour to write, but with Dragon, it took me about 35-40!  What do you think of that?

One reader will win a copy of the Dragon 12 Naturally Speaking Software ($99.00)

114 COMMENTS

  8. I like Omnipage. It works of character recognition so that you can scan a document and the software translates the scanned document.

  13. Dragon Natural–I’ve really wanted to give it a try since the first time I saw it advertised.

    Thanks!

  14. Dragon Naturally Speaking Software…definitely. I have had Dragon in the past and loved it..but lost the software in a move several years ago…and the comp crashed…UGH. ( blogging by speaking, while making dinner…made for some odd blogs until I learned to stop talking to myself..LOL)

  45. I like Dragon Naturally Speaking Software. I had a copy years ago. It was nice. It is so outdated now. I could use a updated version.

  56. Dragon Naturally Speaking got me through long college evenings writing many a term paper, but it has been years and I’m sure it has improved to be even better than it was before. I would love to get the Dragon Naturally Speaking 12.

  81. I HONESTLEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT MY FAVORITE PRODUCT WOULD BE SO MUCH TO CHOOSE FROM AND SO MANY I HAVE NEVER TRIED-THANKS!

  84. As a writer, this program would make my life a lot easier. I didn’t see any other products but I read about the company on their Facebook page and they seem reputable and cutting-edge.

  87. besides dragon speak, which my sister with RSI uses, which is my fav – I love Nuance’s Paper Port – talk about making things easier.

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