Home Office Organization–21st Century Style

Archive for August, 2009

I just read a great article from my PC Pitstop Newsletter, and the article had a link to this site that lists the top 500 passwords to avoid:

Top 500 Worst Passwords of All Time

I can think of several others that should also be avoided:

• Video game system and character names
• Common movie and TV show character names
• Common book character names
• Product brand names (Dell, Sony, JVC, Acer, Nokia, Apple, Whirlpool, etc.)
• Unaltered TV show, book or movie titles
• Unaltered full names of actors and other celebrities

Also, here is the link to the PC Pitstop blog article:

10 Rules to Protect Your Passwords

I can’t say I agree with everything in it, but using a combination of some of the suggestions gives you at least medium strength passwords.

The best passwords are generated randomly by computer using small and capital letters, numbers and symbols; and a minimum of 8 characters. 11-16 characters is better. But, you must be able to remember them. Therein lies the password dilemma.

Some PDA’s have programs that can randomly generate passwords for you, and then you can delete them within the encrypted part of the software. They can’t be hacked unless you have a way of hacking 256 bit or higher encryption and then recovering deleted data from it. One rule for using these programs is don’t connect your PDA to the internet. Key logging software could capture this information as well.

I disagree that passwords shouldn’t be written down on paper and locked in a safe when at home and access is limited. When one dies, someone needs to be able to get into the person’s computer and it makes it a lot easier on your executor to provide the information in some form. The safest place to lock a written list of passwords would be a bank safe deposit box.

Another reason to have some record of passwords other than in your head is what if you have brain surgery or a mild stroke? The brain part that remembers the passwords could be erased and you’re up a creek without a paddle at that point.

It’s a tradeoff. Password strength and security v the human fault to forget things. My advice? Make the best tradeoff you can.

Technorati Tags: 10 rules to protect passwords, information security, password protection, passwords, top 500 passwords to avoid

Tami Dubose discusses getting things done using a physics concept:

Did you take physics in school? If so, do you remember this law, even vaguely? If not, no worries, I’m about to explain.

In classical physics the first set of concepts we study are about the laws of motion. These concepts are governed by Sir Isaac Newton’s 3 laws of motion.

Newton’s first law is an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless it is acted upon by an external force. Conversely, an object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an external force. This law is also known as Galileo’s law of inertia.

In a home-based business, inertia can be hard to overcome since your time is very flexible. But there are several things you can do to make sure you’re getting a respectable amount of important work done each day, work that adds to your bottom line or accomplishes personal things that are really important to you, like taking your kids to the park as soon as they get home from school.

• Plan your important work at the time of day you are most productive. For some people, that’s in the morning. For others, like me, it’s in the late afternoon all the way to about 5 a.m. the next morning. When you can, don’t fight your own body clock and feel guilty about not being up at the crack of dawn to tackle your day.
• Do the most important tasks first. Take your coffee in your office. Don’t get bogged down in your email, read the newspaper or hang out on facebook. If you need to write an important email to send to your list about your business, that isn’t getting bogged down. Responding to client and vendor email is also important. Make important phone calls. Schedule business appointments and attend meetings during this time. If it impacts your bottom line in any way, it needs to be done first.
• I do condone exercise at some point during the day and I believe it’s just as important as any task you do, but you must remain disciplined about it. Much of my exercise is mowing the yard and tending the bushes. It’s a great way to save money and sweat at the same time.
• After your most important task or tasks are done, or you’ve been at it for quite awhile and need a break, take a break. Get up, go somewhere else in the house and do something that needs doing like taking wet laundry out of the washer and putting it into the dryer. Fold a load of clothes while you listen to a training audio, watch a training video, or watch a podcast of a program that is important to you. Start dinner or clean something. By making time for household tasks in your work day you are taking advantage of the best of both worlds. Set a time to stop so you can get back to work.
• Get back on your important tasks. If they’re finished, get through the bulk of your email, postal mail, and organize your desk if it needs it. Run errands or maybe plan your next day, week or month. Some people work best from a set schedule, some work better by task priority and everything else is flexible. Do what works best for you.
• I do my best writing late at night. Whether I’m working on a report, an ebook or a blog post, I do my best writing after 10 p.m. The second best time for me to write is after 3 p.m. Once I start writing I will keep writing until I’m finished, exhausted, starving or my son is insisting upon being fed. I used to have trouble getting started, but now I have trouble stopping. Once you get used to staying in motion, you need an external force to act upon you to get you to stop.
• Have a set time for your work hours. Whether they’re from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. or 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. or 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. or a 2 hour day, make sure you have hours during your day that you are working and hours when you are off. Also be sure to schedule your days off. Most people take the weekends off, but in my current businesses, I take Fridays and Saturdays off. If I have the time, I take an extra day off, or work less on some work days.

If you work for yourself, take advantage of your time flexibility and do all the things other people wish they could do, like spend an hour taking a quiet walk with your significant other or going for a family walk or bike ride. Cook healthy meals at home instead of eating out. Do your grocery shopping at 7 a.m. when the shelves are full, the isles are empty and the checkout lines are short.

But whatever you do, make sure you get busy and get your important work done so your business becomes and stays successful. Overcome that beginning-of-the-day inertia. Once you’re moving and accomplishing, you’ll keep it up.

If you aren’t doing because you don’t like what you do, do something else worth getting out of bed to do.

Technorati Tags: home office organization, Newton's first law of motion, overcoming inertia to be productive, physics applied to business, Productivity, Tami Dubose