Convenience

When traveling distances or locally, lightweight technology is just plain convenient. If you find it’s a bother to lug a laptop down long airport corridors or if you’re tired of dragging it to meetings, you’ll appreciate the weight and size of the iPad. The diagonal screen is 9.7 inches, so you can actually ges something done. Yet the two models weigh in at 1.5 and 1.6 pounds and it’s razor thin—0.5 inches, making it quite portable.

The user interface is as slick as the iPhone, but it has multitouch capabilities. For input, the iPad has a virtual keyboard, that in landscape mode is almost full-sized. You can also buy a hardware keyboard as an accessory.

Power

There’s no question that the iPad is more powerful than your smart phone. The iPad comes comes with a 1-gigahertz (GHz) central processor and 10 hours of battery life. This is a lot of computing power from a little device.

Connectivity

The iPad is mainly about connectivity. One model comes equipped with wireless technology, meaning you can access the Internet from any Wi-Fi hotspot. The higher end version will also include 3G technology for  mobile access through AT&T (you’ll have to buy a plan). This will allow iPad users to access any website whether or not there’s wireless service.

In business terms, this means you can get email, check comments on your blog or use web-based applications from wherever you’re located. That’s the type of convenience that will come in handy for many consultants.

Application-Ready

In addition to accessing web-based applications, the core iPhone apps have been redesigned to work on the iPad. Apple says that 140,000 third party iPhone apps will work on the iPad too. Even better, Apple has an iPad version of  iWorks, the Apple Office Suite that includes a presentation, document creation and spreadsheet programs. And the iBook software will let you download digital publications, similar to a Kindle, but in color.

This means that you can pull out  your iPad if the need arises to for you to show your presentation, take notes when a discussion gets lengthy or show your portfolio of images or movies to potential clients. For large meetings, you can get an inexpensive VGA adapter and hook the iPad to most projectors.

What It’s Missing

Be aware that the iPad has at least four negatives. First, it’s not equipped with a standard USB port. There is an adapter for USB connectivity, but currently, the iPad needs to be docked in it’s port to use it. Certainly, some third party adapters will solve this problem, but it’s one you should know about. Second,  similar to an iPod, you have to sync your iPad with one computer only. Third, the iPad does not multi-task. You can only run one application at a time. This could hamper the amount of work you do on the iPad. And finally, the iPad doesn’t support Flash. This may not matter to most people, but anyone involved in multimedia will find this to be a drawback.

Well, you’ve seen the advantages of this slick little device as well as the drawbacks. Starting at $499, it might be an investment you want to make for your business.

Here are ten of the techniques I share in our Time Management seminars, each one of which will help you to get at least one more hour out of your day of additional productive time.

1. Maintain Balance

Your life consists of Seven Vital Areas: Health, Family, Financial, Intellectual, Social, Professional, and Spiritual. You will not spend equal amounts of time in each area or time every day in each area. But, if in the long run, you are spending a sufficient quantity and quality of time in each area, then your life will be balanced. But ignore any one of your areas, (never mind two or three!) and you will get out of balance and potentially sabotage your success. Fail to take time now for your health and you will have to take time for illness later on. Ignore your family and they may leave you and cost you a lot of time to re-establish relationships. It is especially challenging for self-employed people to maintain balance, isn’t it?

2. Get the Power of the Pen

A faint pen has more power than the keenest mind. Get into the habit of writing things to do down using one tool (a Day-Timer, pad of paper, Palm Pilot, etc.) Your mind is best used for the big picture rather than all the details. The details are important, but manage them with the pen. If you want to manage it you have to measure it first. Writing all things down, not just incoming orders, helps you to more easily remember all that you need to accomplish.

3. Do Daily Planning

It is said that people do not plan to fail but a lot of people fail to plan. Take the time each night to take control of the most precious resource at your command, the next twenty-four hours. Plan your work and then work your plan each day. Write up a To Do list with all you “have to’s” and all of your “want to’s” for your next day. Without a plan for the day, you can easily get distracted, spending your time serving the loudest voice, the noisiest customer, rather than attending to the most important things for your day that will enhance your productivity.

4. Prioritize It

Your To Do list will have crucial and not crucial items on it. Despite the fact most people want to be productive, when given the choice between crucial and not crucial items, we will most often end up doing the not crucial items. They are generally easier and quicker than crucial items. Prioritize your To Do list each night. Put the #1 next to the most important item on your list. Place the #2 next to the second most important item on your list, etc. Then tackle the items on your list in order of their importance. You may not get everything done on your list, but you will get the most important things done. This is working smarter, not harder, and getting more done in less time.

5. Control Procrastination

The most effective planning in the world does not substitute for doing what needs to be done. We procrastinate and put off important things because we don’t sense enough pain for not doing it or enough pleasure to do it. To get going on something you have been putting off, create in your mind enough pain for not doing it or enough pleasure to do it. I prefer the pleasure approach. Take a procrastinated item and turn it into to a game. Work with one thing in front of you at a time so other things won’t distract you. (“Out of sight, out of mind.”) Break it down to little bite-sized, manageable pieces. Get it started, take the first step and you will likely continue it to completion.

6. Run an Interruptions Log

The average person gets 50 interruptions a day. The average interruption takes five minutes. Some four hours each day, on average, are spent dealing with interruptions. Many are crucial and important, like new orders, and are what we get paid to do but many have little or no value. Run an Interruptions Log to identify and eliminate the wasteful interruptions. Just use a pad of paper and label it “Interruptions Log”. Create six columns: Date, Time, Who, What, Length, Rating. After each interruption is dealt with, log in the date and time it occurred, who brought it to you, a word or two about what it related to, the length of time it took, and finally the rating of its importance: A=crucial, B=important, C=little value, and D=no value. Run it for a week or more to get a good measure of what is happening in your life. Then evaluate the results and take action to eliminate some of the C and D interruptions that have little or no value.

7. Delegate It

We all have 168 hours each week and when you subtract 56 hours for sleep and another 10 hours for personal care, that doesn’t leave a whole lot of time to get done what needs to be done. Delegation permits you to leverage your time through others and thereby increase your own results. The hardest part of delegation though, is simply letting go. We take great pride in doing things ourselves. “If you want a job done well, you better do it yourself”. Every night in Daily Planning, look at all that you have to do and want to do the next day and with each item ask yourself, “Is this the best use of my time?” If it is, do it. If it isn’t, try to arrange a way to delegate it to someone else. There is a lot of difference between “I do it” and “It gets done”.

8. Manage Meeting Time

A meeting is when two or more people get together to exchange common information. What could be simpler? Yet, it can be one of the biggest time wasters we must endure. Before a meeting ask, “Is it necessary?” and “Am I necessary?” If the answers to either are “no”, consider not having the meeting or excusing yourself from attending. Then prepare a written agenda for the meeting with times assigned for each item along with a starting time and ending time. Circulate the written agenda among those who will be attending. There is no sense in holding a meeting by ambush. Let people know in advance what is to be discussed.

9. Handle Paper

It’s easy to get buried today in the blizzard of paperwork around us. The average person receives around 150 communications each day via email, telephone, hard mail, memos, circulars, faxes, etc. A lot of time is wasted going through the same pile of paper day after day and correcting mistakes when things slip through the cracks. Try to handle the paper once and be done with it. If it is something that can be done in a minute or two, do it and be done. If it is not the best use of your time, delegate it. If it is going to take some time to complete, schedule ahead in your day calendar on the day you think you might get to it and then put it away.

10. Run a Time Log

If you want to manage it, you have to measure it. A Time Log is a simple yet powerful tool to create a photo album sort of overview of how your time is actually being spent during the day. Simply make an ongoing record of your time as you spend it. Record the activity, the time spent on it, and then the rating using A, B, C, and D as described in #1 above.

Some examples of how your time might be spent: Made telephone calls, 35 minutes, A; Made baskets, 48 minutes, A; Attended meeting, 55 minutes, C: Telephone call from Janis, 7 minutes, D. Run this for a few days to get a good picture of how your time is being spent. Then analyze the information. Add up all the A, B, C, and D time. Most discover a lot of their time is being spent on C and D items that have little or no value. Finally, take action steps to reduce the C and D items to give you more time for the really important things in your life.

What are your best time-saving tips?

There are some who think that unless you meet someone face-to-face, they don’t care enough to remember you no matter how often you converse online. There are those that say Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and LinkedIn are a waste of time and energy. Everyone likes the face-to-face meeting!

Many businesses are guilty of this type of closed-minded perspective. But just think about it. When you partner Social Media with the phone calls and face-to-face meetings, you can create double the opportunities.

The question is: Do you have to have face-to-face meetings to create real relationships (and eventually opportunities)? I find that working the whole spectrum of opportunity is best. I have been successful gaining business from individuals I met through LinkedIn as well as from people whom I have called, chatted with and met face-to-face. The bottom line is this: it is more about the person you are connecting with, not the method of connecting.

The point is that in-person methods for building relationships don’t negate social media methods and vice versa. Imagine for a moment that in your consulting business, you suddenly stopped using the telephone. You would never get any business through that channel. The same is true for those who rely solely on the Internet as a way to connect. There needs to be a marriage of the two approaches in order to make business successful.

The secret to success is finding the right balance of communication and relationship building for your clients and your business. In an informal survey of my clients’ preferences, they responded with a wide age range of unpredictable answers. Some prefer e-mails and LinkedIn, others liked meetings and snail mail, and some liked it all.

At the end of the day, only you know your business and purpose for using social media. Perhaps for some, social media does not yet have a place in their business, but times are changing quickly.

Part 4 in the Getting Started series.

Learning the intricacies of managing your consulting business is the way to make it profitable and successful. In addition to the challenges faced by all business owners, you will need to manage client expectations and deliver high quality services. All of this needs to be done while looking for the next client or project. (Who said this was easy?) These guidelines will ease the pain.

Establish and Manage Project Scope

In simplest terms, establishing scope is achieving agreement with your client on what you are expected to provide in exchange for an agreed upon fee. Ensuring services meet customer expectations, however, is more difficult than verifying a vendor delivered a certain quantity of an item. This is why it is important to establish, in as much detail as possible before the start of the project, what the client is expecting and what level of effort it will take you to provide this. While there are several ways that consultants bill for services, the most common are deliverable-based or time and materials. Each approach to billing has its own challenges in terms of agreeing on scope.

How to Scope Deliverable-Based Projects. Consultants often provide their clients with a deliverable, which can take many forms. It can be an actual product, such as marketing literature or a completed software package. Deliverables can also be a report or plan for future actions. They can be events that you have planned or complete conversions of operations or technology.

To determine pricing, estimate the amount of time and other resources you will have to invest in order to complete the deliverable. This is where your previous experience comes in to play. Based on this estimate and your rate for services, you can compute what to charge your client. Even if you agree on a fair cost for this, you still need to specify what the components and contents of the deliverable that will be included.

Too many consultants spend countless hours reworking a project because they failed to reach agreement on results. When estimating the time and cost of a deliverable, consider client dependencies as well. Often times, certain steps in your project plan cannot be accomplished because they are dependent on someone from the clients’ organization. Inform the client of the level of support or involvement you will need from his or her organization.

How to Scope Time and Materials Projects. In time and materials projects, you are paid your hourly rate for time invested plus any out of pocket expenses you incur on behalf of your client. The key to success in these types of projects is to reach an agreement in advance as to the number of hours you will spend on a particular task.

During the project, ensure that your client is comfortable with the hours you are actually billing. One effective means of communicating this is through status reports. Rather than waiting till tasks are complete and submitting a bill, provide regular periodic reports indicating what you are doing and how many hours you have spent doing it. Include any observations you have or problems that you have noted. Also identify expenses you incurred along the way, being sure to save all receipts. It is important to have some agreement on the expense guidelines you will be using. These expenses represent actual out of pocket cash to you. Failure to get reimbursed can be a real drain on the business.

Manage Your Cash

For both deliverable and time and material projects it is important to establish a billing schedule to get cash into your business. If you are working on an hourly basis perhaps the generation and acceptance of a periodic status report can trigger an invoice to the client. For deliverable-based projects that extend out over more than a two to four week time period you need to establish interim billing milestones. One way to do this is to break down the large deliverable into “manageable chunks” that are integral to the progress and successful completion of the overall project. This needs to be agreed upon at the start of the project.

Manage Multiple Clients

While initially you may only work with one client, the growth of your practice will bring additional clients. While it is less risky to not rely on one client, it does have challenges. You will have additional expectations from multiple clients. Overpromising or underestimating time constraints can cause problems for everyone. No client likes to hear that their needs are secondary to others. It is your responsibility to build a work plan for each client that takes his or her individual needs and timing into consideration. The good news is that with today’s technology it is much easier to multitask and stay in contact with multiple clients. If you are onsite at one client, there is no reason that you cannot email another client about your progress.

Avoid the Porpoise Effect

The porpoise effect is when you are heads down underwater hard at work for so long, that when you surface, there is no work on the horizon. So while you are hard at work putting in the hours and constructing your deliverables, you still need to budget time for finding the next project. This might be in the form of additional work from an existing client or from an entirely new project. Either will take time to market and develop a winning proposal.

Becoming proficient in managing your consulting business will take some time. It requires many skills and a considerable investment of time and effort. Many consultants initially tend to over deliver to clients. This can take away from the time they need to perform other tasks. Learning to exceed your client expectations at the same time you are making money will provide you with great rewards.

What are your tips for business management? Comment below.

Consider These Three Questions

1. What worked and did not work for you in the previous year?

• Seems obvious, but people often forget what went “wrong” and repeat it again and again.  Something going “wrong” doesn’t mean that it blew up or cost you money.  It can be as simple as not achieving the results you desired  or that  it took too much of your time.
• On the same note, people often forget what went “right” in the previous year.  Funny, as this is how we succeed. Try not become too content with where you are and what you are capable of achieving. Aim high!  It is a new year!

2. What do you want to accomplish in 2010?

• Something as small as acquiring 10 new qualified Linked-In contacts this year or as ambitious as becoming the #1 in your field.
• Do you want to learn to build deeper relationships through social networking? Keep your goals top of mind in everything you do. Schedule them into your day or week so you have time to achieve your goals.

3. What new Social Media outlets would you like to try (or not) this year?

• Many people are content with the outlets they are using, which is fine.  At the same time I know (first hand) that there are so many social media outlets available, it can become overwhelming.  You either try too many at once to keep up, or avoid using any at all.
• One idea is to consider how you are going to juggle the social media you are currently using. Is there a way to work smarter not harder?  Would it be more convenient to send updates with your  a Blackberry or iPhone? What about pre-writing articles and updates?
• Like many people I have spoken to, you may even decide that in 2010 you are going to stop using some outlets for social media.  Perhaps the return on investment isn’t worth it the effort. Regardless of what you decide, it’s most important that you are thinking things through. Remember that your social media presence is your face on the internet.  Make it true to who you are and how you want to be seen!

What are your social media goals and strategies for 2010? Our readers would appreciate your ideas!

NPOs Have Unique Challenges

Unlike for-profits, an NPO cannot arbitrarily increase its percentage of spending on advertising and marketing when times get rough. People give to an NPO expecting their money to impact mission critical topics and programs, not to be used to generate more revenue. An NPO is expected to keep the percentage of its revenue used to fund staff positions, marketing and non-program related expenses to a minimum. Failing to do so could adversely affect its ability to attract future contributions.

Today, an NPO needs to be wiser and more efficient than ever. Factors such as appealing to the public because you have a worthy mission; demonstrating that the people you serve have increasing needs, or doing good work are unlikely to separate an organization from all the other groups with their hand out. More than ever, an NPO must demonstrate value, return on investment, and above all else, differentiation from every other group out there that claims to perform a portion of the same mission. Brand consulting to an NPO requires a mix of skills including organizational development, business strategy, human resources, board and volunteer development, and of course, marketing.

Showing the Story Increases Public Awareness

Telling an organization’s story has become less effective. “Showing” is what moves people. Rather than telling the story of March of Dimes (MOD), those of us involved a few years ago in repositioning it focused on showing the results of wise investment in community programs, medical research, public and professional education. Showing mothers and their successful pregnancies through proper prenatal care helped to greatly increase the public’s awareness and understanding of MOD, resulting in more donations.

Working with the Alaska Wilderness League we adjusted its brand to better reflect how people living in the lower forty eight states were impacted by decisions made in Washington, DC relative to the use of land and resources in Alaska. The League dramatically increased not only its donor base and level of giving, but also drew more attention to its successful leadership of environmental issues and public policy on Capital Hill.

Enhance the Feeling of Personal Connection

To successfully brand an NPO it is critical the organization present itself in a manner that allows the target audience to say “I see me” and not merely applaud the good work being done. Whether as a recipient of services, helping to deliver services or programs, or taking action in some manner, people seldom want to give money to a cause where they do not feel a personal connection.

Among all the groups tasked with providing emergency services following Hurricane Katrina, only the American Red Cross (a volunteer driven aid organization) was recognized for performing up to expectations. The US government, state and municipal entities all fell short. Red Cross volunteers rushed to help, and other people identified with them, or were helped either directly or indirectly themselves. The Red Cross coffers grew as a result.

Finally, the National Family Caregivers Association, based in Maryland, made significant strides in distinguishing itself as one of the preeminent authorities on the subject of care giving in this country by shifting its strategy from merely supporting family caregivers to recognizing that nearly every adult American is, or has been a caregiver, will be a caregiver, or will be the one to whom family care is given.

* Giving USA, 2009

I learn a great deal from studying other social media masters. After all, how can you be the best if you don’t learn from them? Regardless of your political views of Obama as President, I urge you to read on so you can apply these lessons to your business. Although I am Canadian, so I am not a US voter nor am I a supporter of any candidate, I was fascinated by the book, Barack 2.0, which I have read through multiple times. If you have not read it, I strongly suggest that you do. This was one of the best purchases I made in my career.

The premise of this book is teach readers how to put Web 2.0 tools and strategies from the Obama campaign to work for your business. It is all based on how they were able to connect, engage and communicate with millions. It is not a secret that part of the success of Obama’s campaign came from his Internet presence. He reached out and appealed to the public by allowing them to feel they were important to him and were becoming a part of history!

Facts about the campaign:

• He has over 2,379,102 supporters
• He has over 833,161 friends on my space
• His You Tube has over 114,559 subscribers and 18,413,100 channel views
• His Twitter has over 2,338,865 followers
• He sent over 1 billion e-mails during the campaign
• He has 500+ conections on Linked-In (remember Linked-In does not show past that)
• In total Obama has over 5 million supporters on Social Media Networking Sites
• He had over 3 million people donate to his campaign online
• He has over 120 widgets
• His online staff was 10 to 1 against McCain’s
• He started his own social network (MyBarackObama.com) and over 2 million people have profiles on it

Obama’s Presidential Campaign was the most successful “small business” use of social media that I can find. You’ll find this model works as well for business as it does for politics.

Get Barack Obama’s Social Media Lessons For Business on Amazon.

No More Interruption Marketing

In the old world of interruption marketing, we were required to interrupt and shout. Television commercials are always louder in order to grab our attention and interrupt what we are doing. That behavior is no longer necessary. Your community wants real conversation and valuable information that only you can give. The relationship is the focus of your new marketing efforts. This one shift in thinking is what is necessary to really take advantage of the social network marketing opportunities that are waiting for you.

Preparing Your Buyer to Take Action

Social media prepares your customers to take action once you have established a relationship. Think of your sales as a funnel. At the wide top of the funnel are people who have just come in contact with you and your product. They are mildly interested and so they join your community by signing up for your email opt-in list or maybe becoming your friend on Facebook. They get to know you a little better. If they continue to be interested in you and your product, they will move further into the sales funnel until they are ready to buy.

Some people will not move all the way through your funnel. That is okay. In fact, that is what you want, because those who leave are no longer interested in buying. Those who are still interested, remain in your funnel. So as you network and interact with your community, you are now only interacting with members of your community who are interested in you and what you have to say. The funnel allows you to sort out those who are interested from those who are not. This process brings potential customers who are interested in you and your product. This process of building relationships and bringing customers further into your funnel makes it easier for your community to say yes when you ask them to take action.

Social Media Eases the Way

For buyers to buy, they need to:

(1) Know you

(2) Like you and

(3) Trust you

Social media makes all three of these not only possible, but easier.  Your buyers will meet you on the networks. And once they’ve interacted with you for a while in a non-threatening way, they begin to trust you.  And here is a secret, you don’t even have to make sales pitches. All that is required of you is to invite people to your community and get to know them. That’s it!

You can start your social network marketing today. Sign up for Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn. Spend time connecting with people and learning how to use the network.  Then take this free access to buyers and pump up your profits!

Admittedly, it’s more art than science, but you can follow a few simple steps to ensure that the best of what you offer is highly visible—and memorable.

Step 1. Know yourself and what makes you distinct.

Look around you. How many technology consultants are there? HR? Financial? Strategy? That’s right, you are most definitely not alone. So avoid the urge to cast a wide net with all the services you COULD provide. Instead, focus on what you do that no one else can. Creating your own market beats battling for someone else’s market.

Start by slicing and dicing your talents against your client experience. Say you’re a training consultant. What special expertise can you claim? Do you design interactive web-based programs? Deliver high-energy sales training live? Are your best clients from a specific function, industry or segment?
Which sounds better—“I’m a training consultant” or “I help telecommunications sales reps double their sales in 6 months?”

Once you’re clear on how you are different, you can focus your efforts (think laser not shotgun) on the people who might hire or refer you.

Step 2. Align your stories, actions and visuals.

We humans are hard-wired to learn by story. And the most successful consultants demonstrate their expertise and results by telling exactly the right story for the circumstance. How compelling are your stories? Do they align with how you uniquely serve your clients? Can you tell them winningly at a moment’s notice?

If not, spend some time recalling—and practicing—your most memorable client experiences.

Your actions prove—over and over—that you are who you say you are. Are you high-touch? Then you better be quick to respond and thoughtful. Are you the subject matter expert? Then you want to be the first out with your take on a new bill or a bold new idea. Known for your integrity? Then don’t take referral fees from those you recommend.

And of course we all know that one great visual is worth at least 1,000 words. So in addition to weaving great visuals into your work, pay attention to how you dress, walk and enter the room. It matters.

The critical piece here is alignment: your stories, actions and visuals must tell a consistent, compelling, unique story.

Step 3. Put yourself out there.

Once you’re clear on how to position yourself—and have the client stories to back it up—put yourself where your targeted clients spend their time. Focus on truly connecting with them. Provide value in your unique way every time you interact so they can experience working with you. When it’s time to discuss a possible project, they will already be sold on you.

Why restrict your circle to those you already know? Use social media—LinkedIn is a natural for most business consultants—and explore other platforms where your potential clients are spending time and open to business connections.

Write a blog—just don’t make it all about you. Give your target clients tips, ideas or your unique take on pending issues. Think hard before launching a newsletter—most are boringly self-promotional and beg for the delete key. Ask yourself, what can I give my clients that they value and don’t receive from anyone else?

The bottom line is this: You can make yourself unforgettable and literally grow your practice exponentially. It requires exceptional clarity on who you are, fine-tuned alignment of all that you do and deep engagement in connecting with the right audience.

You’ll also like these articles:
Attract More Prospects In 30 Seconds Or Less
The Secret Of Personal Branding 2.0

Home Office Comfort Made Easy

In a recent article, you learned the importance of a good desk chair. But even the best chair is only one part of ergonomics. Ergonomics refers to the study of designing equipment, such as chairs, keyboards, and workstations to reduce fatigue, discomfort and injury and to align them to the shape of the human body.

Comfort = Productivity

Many people think ergonomics is too complicated and expensive, but it simply involves adjusting your chair, keyboard and/or monitor. A few minutes of fine-tuning will pay benefits in reduced neck, shoulder, back and wrist strain.

The Ergonomic Equation (with apologies to Albert Einstein)

A simple way to remember ergonomics is:

• E² = MCK
• Ergonomics made Easy = Monitor (or laptop screen) + Chair + Keyboard.

Let’s start from the ground up:

Chair

To prevent leg cramps and back pain your desk chair must:

• Allow your feet to rest flat on the floor or a foot rest
• Adjust so your ankles, knees and hips are at approximate right angles

Keyboard

To avoid having your shoulders hunched while you work (a major source of muscle tension):

• Adjust the height of your keyboard so your shoulders can relax, with your elbows at a 90º angle and your forearms parallel to the floor.
• Use a keyboard drawer, an articulating keyboard tray or adjustable keyboard stand.
• The keyboard tray or drawer should be wide enough to hold your computer mouse as well, so you can easily move your hand and forearm back and forth between keyboard and mouse.
• Place a wrist support cushion below your keyboard – this is crucial.
• Use a standard keyboard and mouse plugged-into to your laptop and placed on a keyboard tray or adjustable stand, rather than work on your laptop keyboard,

Monitor or Laptop Screen

To avoid neck pain and headaches have your computer screen adjusted so your head is balanced, not thrust forward or tilted back:

• Ergonomic engineers recommend adjusting your computer monitor so the top of the computer screen is level with your eyes. This allows for a slightly downward gaze that is less drying and fatiguing for your eyes.
• If you are tall, you may need to raise your laptop with an adjustable stand, or use a phone book or ream of paper to elevate your computer screen.
• If you are short when seated or wear bi-focals, you may need to lower your computer screen.
• If you find yourself squinting, use the often overlooked “zoom” or “enlarge page” function on your computer. Or simply move the monitor or laptop screen a few inches closer to you.
• Have your computer screen and keyboard aligned right in front of you, instead of twisting in your chair.

Telephone Headset

Consider a telephone headset connected to your desktop or cellular phone. They are relatively inexpensive and save on visits to your chiropractor. One client told me, with a smile, a two ear-piece headphone screens out the distracting noise of her kids.

You will know you have done everything right when your shoulders are relaxed, your forearms are parallel to the floor, and your feet are flat on the floor or a foot rest.