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Today I will continue with discussion to Steve Pavlina’s article „10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job“. Let’s take the next arguments from Steve.

4. Too many mouth to feed

Employees are usually taxed heavier than businessman. If you own your company then it gives you many options for tax deductions reducing the amount of money you will have to pay to the state. In addition, when you are an employee then you have to earn profits for your company. If you are working in your own company then you will keep the profits. An employee you will get only a fraction of the income you generate.

While all this is true and for many people these are good reasons for having their own business, there are some drawbacks of it. While you have to pay more taxes as an employee, you do not have to bother yourself with the bookkeeping. It is not so difficult, but for some people it is the reason why they prefer to be wage earners.

Managing a business is even more difficult thing to do. If you are a part of a big team then you can earn money even if you are not doing so great job. If your performance is below average then you will be clearly better off as an employee. You will not earn much, buy still get something to cover your expenses.

5. Way too risky

Steve claims that employment is too risky as you can get fired easily. You will not have control over your company. If the management is making silly decisions that will drive the company into bankruptcy then you really cannot do much about it. In the ongoing economic and financial crises so many people have lost their jobs and it really feels that employment is not as safe as it was before.

It is true that employment relationships are not so stable anymore. Those times are over when you could work the whole life in one organization. Getting fired is part of our lives. Still, if you are a good employee then the chances of you getting fired are lower (although Steve is right that things are not completely under your control).

If you are an employee than you can get fired if you are a businessman then you can go into bankruptcy. Although the outcome will depend more on you when you are an entrepreneur the consequences of it may be more favorable to an employee. If you will get fired you will receive unemployment insurance and you can find a new job. Most people who get fired will not remain unemployed for the rest of their life.

6. Having an evil bovine master

The word boss comes from the Dutch word baas, which historically means master. Steve argues that you can avoid unpleasant people when doing business, but you cannot avoid your boss even if you hate him.

Still, even if you are a businessman then you may still have to deal with people you do not like. You can encounter them every where. It is true that you can choose your business partners, but it is also true that you can choose your boss. If you do not like your boss, then you can get a new job.

7. Begging for money

If you are an employee then you will have to ask from your boss for a raise. It is true that employees, who do not fight for their wages are often underpaid. So there will be always a debate with your boss about your pay and you can view it as begging.

If you are a businessman then you have to earn profits on your own and you will not have to negotiate about them. This is absolutely true. In addition the possibilities for earning more are much bigger as a businessman. Still, flexible and performance based pay systems are more and more used, which allow earning higher wages for employees with out begging from the boss.

kristjan Business bankruptcy, Business, job, profits, wage earners

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In most cases stress will do more harm than good to people. Most of the stress has negative influence on individuals. The positive effects of stress usually occur only in the short-run. If there are short high positive stress periods, then it may do good for us as it stimulates to induce effort. Unfortunately, stress tends to be continuous for many people. The long-run stress effects can be devastating. If there is always pressure and it will not go away no matter what you do then people tend to give up. If you are constantly in stress condition then it will lower your quality of life and it may lead to health problems.

What causes stress? There are many different types of factors, which create it. They are called stressors. First, stress can be caused by the physical environment. If you have to spend your time in disturbing physical conditions then it creates stress. The most common examples are:

• Insufficient space. If you have to work in an overcrowded office, then you are likely to get disturbed frequently. There may not be enough room for you to place and access your tools or papers. Similarly, if you live in a too small space, then conflicts are easy to rise. In order to be creative and productive in your work you need space. Otherwise you cannot develop bright ideas. For example, I am much more creative if I am alone in the room and if there is enough open space.
• Noise. Background noise can be very irritating. It will not allow you to concentrate. Other people chatting, making phone calls, or noise from different machines may create stress.
• Poor illumination. You should have as much as possible day light in order to reduce your stress level. If you have to work in a room with no windows and if the room is not properly lit, then it will create stress. On the other hand, sunlight makes people happy.
• Poor ventilation. You need to have fresh air in order to work comfortably and calmly.
• Inadequate temperature. If you feel too cold or too hot then it will disturb you-

Next, stress can be created by your working tasks. This is called work stress and it occurs when the nature of the work, the expected results or compensation received for effort is in conflict with our expectations. The main sources for work-related stress are:

• Unclear expectations. If you do not know exactly what you have to do then it is difficult to do it well. You get some instructions from the boss, but if they are not precise enough then you do not know how you should execute them. In the worst case you may get conflicting orders. For example, once you are told to work out changes in the marketing plan and then you are told not to change it. It is confusing and will cause you to do unnecessary work. Similarly, if you have given too difficult or impossible task to perform then you will know in the forehand that you will fail, which again creates stress.
• Unpleasant tasks. If you have to spend much of the time on thing you do not enjoy doing, then work will not be pleasure for you. Of course there are some tasks that you may not like for every job, but if there are too much of them, then it can be stressful. It may be caused by the fact that you are assigned tasks that are not suitable for you. Or the job itself can be something you do not like. Sadly, many people are employed on jobs that do not suit them well, but still people do not switch jobs.
• Changes in work. Different people have different capabilities of adapting to the changes. Some people feel highly stressed if the content of the work changes, they are assigned new tasks, they are transferred to a new position or when they switch jobs. Similarly, personnel changes may be a stressor, for example if you get new colleagues or team members or a new boss.
• Poor performance. If you cannot meet your expectations, then you may feel guilty for that. If you constantly underperform then you may start fearing your bad results and so working can become stressful for you.

Third, stress is often caused by human relationships. Various types of conflicts or misunderstanding or being not able to express one’s feeling may generate stress. The most common stressors in this group are:

• Marital separation or divorce. If your long-term relationship is going to end or has ended recently then it creates huge changes to lives of both partners. Furthermore, there have probably been problems for a while, and split-ups are often not so calm and controlled events. Usually there are lots of emotions and conflicts. Divorce may lead to complex financial troubles, so it can create continuous stress.
• Death of a family member or a close friend. If it comes unexpectedly then it can be a huge blow, it is going to change your life for ever and it may create high level of stress.
• Conflicts with spouse or friends. If these conflicts remain unsolved and if the repeat over and over again then they can cause much harm.
• Problems with children. Problems at school, bad behavior, trouble with police or not being able to solve conflicts with them to just make them to listen to you can cause stress.

Finally, there are many other sources for stress.

• Financial problems. It is said that money makes you calm, actually it does not make you. Money creates money problems, which cause stress. Financial stability and avoiding troubles with money makes you calm. Many people cannot handle financial issues well.
• Uncertainty about future. If there are going to be changes in your life, but you are not sure about them then it can create stress. For example, you do not know if you are going to get into university of if you will be able to find a job when you are unemployed.
• Lack of time. If there are too many tasks for you to do and you just do not have time to deal with them then you will not be able to complete all of them on time. You may feel guilty that you have so much to do, but you cannot do it and you say to yourself that you have to do more things, and you find that you are a lousy person because you have not managed it.
• Health problems. If you do not feel yourself well and if you cannot do anything to get better (or it takes time to heal) then it is unpleasant and stressful. If you do not have good health then you activities may not succeed so well, which again generates stress.
• Changing your residence. If you migrate to a foreign country then it will make huge changes to your life. You will have new job, new colleagues, and new friends. You will be in an environment where other people speak foreign language.

kristjan time management environment, health problems, job, relationships, stress, stressors

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Many people think that time management is something for people with heavy workloads. If they think about managing time the typically imagine a CEO, who will work 80 hours a week and who is always in time trouble. And then we think that time management gives him tools for working more efficiently such as computer software for scheduling appointments, organizing contacts etc. But what about other professions? We may think that time management is also beneficial for other types of professions, which keep people very busy for example lawyers, secretaries, middle managers and so on. But we usually do not think that for example that an artist, kindergarten teacher or a car mechanic will benefit much from it. It is true that business managers participate more in time management trainings then school teachers, but it should not mean that it would be less beneficial for school teachers in comparison to managers.

I have given many time management courses for high school and kindergarten teachers in Estonia. It may seem that these people will not benefit much from time management skills as their working time is to a great extent scheduled. In practice it comes out that you can benefit a lot from time management even if you have a strictly defined working schedule.

Time management starts from thinking about what we will want in hour life. Looking on time management only from the viewpoint of scheduling our working tasks is a limited perspective. We are always spending time on different activities and it is no difference whether we are working, eating, watching TV or playing tennis. Everyone has 24 hours in a day and it is totally up to you how you will spend it. If we take a broader view then even our jobs activities that we are obliged to do are voluntary. For example, if you do not like getting up early, but you have to do it for your current work commitments then you may think about finding another job, which allows you to work on different hours. If you are an office worker, but you would enjoy more staying outdoors, then you can again think about switching jobs. The same applies to spending our leisure time. If you sit in a pub every Friday night, but you actually do not enjoy it very much, than you can start doing something else instead of that. You just have to think what kind of life you want to live. And clearly, everyone regardless of his/her job can do it.

To achieve that kind of life you want to live, you have to set clear goals. You can have goals about your career progress, personal development and also about your hobbies or spending time with your family. Again, everyone can set these goals for himself.

If you have set goals then you have to deal with them for achieving them. It is much easier to accomplish a goal if you have worked out a detailed action plan. For example, if you want to be a good tennis player, then it will be useful for you to make a plan how you will improve your play. Your plan may include hiring a personal coach, improving your general fitness level, reading books or watching videos on tennis training and so on.

If you have worked out that kind of plans then you have to find time for putting them into practice as otherwise they are no use for you. That is when the scheduling comes in. Even when you have a job where you do not have many possibilities to make changes to your work schedule, you will still benefit from scheduling your leisure time. It may seem a bit strange, but it will actually help you to have more quality time and you will avoid spending hours on sitting on a sofa and watching TV.

Finally, time management is about making things more efficiently, which means doing more in less time. How to read emails in shorter time? How to commute more rationally? How to avoid procrastination? How to keep your self fresh and energized throughout the whole day? These skills are very general and useful for everyone. You can be a high school student, professor, sales agent, hairdresser or a nurse and you will benefit from these skills. Learning to do things more efficiently will make your life easier as it allows for you to save time. When applying time management principles you will find yourself to a lesser extent in time trouble, your life will be more pleasant and less stressful.

kristjan time management goals, job, time management

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Most people work only in one organization and thus they have only one job. They get paid once a month and for many employees the paycheck is the same from month to month. The working hours are strictly defined such as from 9 AM to 5 PM and they working time and leisure time are separated from each other. The employer tells the employee what he/she has to do and the employee will obey the employer’s orders. Usually there is no additional income for the employee. It means that the wage paid by the company determines how much can the worker consume. By the end of the month they wage money is usually spent and there are no other income sources.

Easy and carefree life, isn’t it? The employee does not have to worry about too many things and can concentrate only to achieving the tasks set by his/her boss. But what happens if the company, where the worker is employed does not need him anymore? What if the market situation changes and their no demand for that kind of work any more? The result is that the worker loses his/her job. If the income comes only from that job, then it means the loss of income for that person. Of course, unemployment insurance and social security system can help to provide some income, but still the loss of job usually causes a sharp drop in income.

What if that person had multiple sources of income? If the income from one source would dry up, the rest of the income would be still there. For example, if a person has two jobs, then the monetary loss from being fired from one job will be relatively smaller in comparison to having only one job.

Having different sources of income can be viewed as risk diversification. For example a sensible investor will not put all of his money only on one company’s share, but he will by shares of many companies for reducing the risk. If the stock price of one company will go down, but if the prices of other stocks will increase, then they will decrease the loss from the first company’s stock. Losing a job in can be compared to a company going broke in case of stock market investments. In that case the stock price will decrease to zero. If the investor had invested all his money to that company, all of his wealth would have been lost. But if the share of investment to the broke company is for example 10%, then the value of the investor’s portfolio would have only decreased by 10%.

During the recent years I have been employed in several different organizations. There have been cases the work has ended in some places. As I have maintained income from other jobs, these cases have not been very big problems. Additionally dealing with different tasks is interesting for me; it offers variety and possibility to work together with many different people. A number of my friends have lost their job due to the economic crises during the last few months and as they have received income only from one job, it has caused them big financial troubles.

Having several jobs does not necessarily mean that you have to work longer hours. It is good if your second or third job are time and place flexible, which will allow you to choose where and when to deal with them. In that case it may be possible, that you can use stoppages and waiting times in one work for doing the work from other jobs. By doing that you will increase your productivity and you will earn more money by working for the same time. For me the main job has been an associate professor position at the university, but I have used the time between lectures for working on different research projects, which have given me additional income.

Even if you do not absolutely like the idea that you have to be working on different thing at the same time, the minimum you should do is that you should have a plan B for the case you will lose you present job. Even if your job seems to be very safe it is useful to find alternative job options for yourself. The economic situation may always change and no job is 100% secure.

kristjan Business income, job, risk, unemployement

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Learning to speed read will enable you to start reading considerably faster than you have done it previously. Most people can double their initial reading speed after regular practice. Speed reading can be successfully applied to different job-related reading tasks so that it increases your productivity on the job.

The effect of speed reading on the productivity depends on the share of the working time one spends on reading and of course it is different in case of different professions. On the general, office workers will spend more time on reading and they will benefit more from learning to speed read in comparison to manual workers.

So which are the professions who will benefit most from speed reading? Although this list is not conclusive on the average the representatives of those professions have more possibilities for applying speed reading skills

• Managers and executives. For them information is vital for making the right decisions and the time for obtaining that information can be very limited.
• Clerks. They have to read and write many documents, and their work is to large extending desk work.
• Secretaries. Similarly to the clerks subject to heavy paper work. Often need to read for searching information for their bosses.
• Accountants and auditors. It will take a lot of time to go through those long reports if you are a slow reader. In addition, the legislation is always changing and you have to keep up with it.
• Lawyers. Reading loads of materials is a must for orientating in the legislation. Knowledge is a power for them and it will help winning court cases.
• Doctors. To become a doctor you have to study a lot and when you are a doctor you have to still study a lot for keeping up with the developments in the medicine.
• Journalists. For writing a good article you have to be well-informed and for that among other thing you have to read a great deal.
• Engineers. Lots of technical reading for engineers.
• IT specialists. They have to read all kinds of manuals, system descriptions and so on.
• Researches and analytics. Research means a lot of reading.
• Teachers. Both reading student’s homework and keeping up with the recent developments in your profession can be very time consuming.
• Professors or other scientific workers. Reading scientific literature can be very time consuming, speed reading will help them a lot.

Although not a profession, high school or college students can be added to their lists as they have to do a great deal of reading in relation with their studies. Speed reading will help them to save time, read additional materials and achieve better results on the exams.

kristjan Speed Reading job, profession, speed reading

In 20th century most people worked as employees and only about 10% of employed were entrepreneurs. Traditionally the job an employee has been restricted both by time and space. The wage earner worked from 9 AM to 5 PM 5 days a week. He had a working place provided by his employer. His boss told him what exactly his tasks are, gave him these tasks, monitored his performance and evaluated him. Usually the employee received a fixed pay, for example $2000 in a month. In same cases he may have earned premiums or bonuses for good performance or just for Christmas. Still the fixed pay made up the biggest share of his earnings.

In 21st century the jobs will be different. The situation of employees will be come more similar to the situation of entrepreneurs. First, the employees will not have so strictly limited tasks than before. The employees are expected to find creative solutions to problems rather than dealing with specific tasks. It means that employees will have more freedom and responsibilities like the entrepreneurs have. Additionally, the jobs will become more time and space flexible. For example, if the firm expects the employee to design an advertising booklet for his client, then it is really not important when and where the employee does this job. Of course, it is important that he will finish the booklet by the deadline agreed with the client. But it does not matter how much time the employee spends for that project or what time does he work on it, it is irrelevant whether he works on it on Monday from 9 AM to 5 PM or Saturday night from 1 AM to 7 AM. Similarly, it makes no difference if the works on it in the office in London or on Mallorca beach. What matters is the result. It does not even matter if he designs the booklet himself or if he outsources that work. That kind of developments mean that the employee will have more control over his time and activities and the boss will control him less then in the past. What matters is achieving excellent results on time.

Second, if the employee’s job becomes more results-based, then his monetary rewards for it must be also more results-based. Traditionally employers have paid their employees previously agreed fixed pay. That kind of stable pay has been relatively risk-free for employees as if the employee’s performance is at least satisfactory then he has always received his pay check. That kind of pay system is not very motivating and it does not drive the employees to work with efficiently and find solutions for earnings more revenues for the company. The entrepreneur has never had a fixed income, for him it has been always necessary to put in effort for offering better products and services, but if successful there have been chances for him to earn a big fortune. Now the things have started to changes as pay systems, where the wages are related to performance are more widely used. That kind of trend is likely to continue in the future. It is also possible that employees are offered more profit-sharing schemes in the future.

What does it mean for you? It means that in future you have to be able to manage and plan your time and work efficiently for being successful on your job. The employee has to think on his own how he will reach his goals, what kind of resources he will use for that, at what time does he work, how much does he work and whether he work himself or outsources some of the tasks. There will be not so many so called warm places in the future, where the employee has little work to do and it is possible to earn wage without effort. Those kinds of job are inefficient and harmful to economy. For private businesses, they lead to high production costs, which will force the firm out of business if the competition becomes more and more global and intense. In public sector, the existence of these jobs wastes the tax payers’ money and cause budget deficits.

What kind of news we hear everyday in relation with the global economic crisis? The companies are downsizing, governments are cutting cost. Firms are restructuring their processes, making them more efficient and productive. This will change the nature of the jobs too. In efficient jobs will abolish, there will be no easy options for earning money for lazy employees any more. Is it good or bad? For those who like doing nothing it is sad news, but it is also a good opportunity for those who like pursuing higher goals. Future jobs will give employees more freedom and responsibility; they will offer more possibilities for personal development and give good pay according to the employees’ performance. The chances for successful employees to earn very high wages will increase. So far those kinds of options have been privileges of entrepreneurs, but soon they will be more and more available for wage earners.

kristjan Business earnings, flexibility, job, wages, working time