One common complaint for people who work at home is that it’s really easy to get out of shape. You have your refrigerator right there, and it’s way too easy to sit at your desk or on the couch working on your computer for too many hours each day. You have less excuse to leave the house, and too often that leads to not exercising enough.

Obviously, this weight gain can happen as a result of any sedentary job, whether you work at home or away from it. But if you’re at home, you might just have the flexibility to do something about it.

Take a Walk

Taking a daily walk is a simple way to get some basic exercise in. No special equipment needed, and you can work it into your day relatively easily.

I take a walk when my kids are at school, for example. I often help in my son’s class, but take the long way home. It’s a little over a mile is all, but the steep hill on one side makes it a pretty good workout, especially when pushing a stroller.

The trick with taking a walk is minimizing how you let the weather stop you. What are your limits? Will you walk on rainy days, cold days, hot days, snowy days? It’s all too easy to let seasonal weather stop you for a time, and then fail to pick the habit back up later.

Get Basic Home Workout Equipment

Unless you know you’re going to be serious about using it, I don’t suggest spending thousands of dollars on home fitness equipment. I’ll admit that a treadmill desk sounds really appealing, but that’s more than I’m ready to spend right now.

My husband and I did, however, buy a Total Gym 1100. It provides a nice range of workouts.

Find the equipment that you like to use. If you have or have had in the past a gym membership, you probably know what kind of exercises you like to do. Get any equipment you need to make that possible.

Consider Workout Videos

If it makes it more interesting for you, a workout video is a good choice as well. Sometimes that bit of direction helps you to push through.

Consider a Gym Membership

You don’t have to buy equipment for your home if you’d rather get a gym membership. It’s a great excuse to get out of your house; just make sure you’re actually going to use it. Some of us are more likely to use the gym membership while others are more likely to workout at home. Pick the one that will work for you.

Use Workouts as a Break From Working

A workout is a great break from your work day. You don’t have to do a huge workout each time; even 10 minutes will get you going, especially if you do that a few times a day. Multiple fitness breaks are usually easiest with home fitness equipment, of course.

A workout is a nice way to refresh your mind as well as your body. You aren’t so focused on whatever you’ve been working on, and that can be a very good thing. Many people find their focus improves after a break. You may end up more productive. It’s a nice bonus to feeling more fit.

Software expenses can add up fast when you work at home. Fortunately, good software doesn’t always have to cost a lot of money. You can find open source software that costs less than other programs and may also be available free. These are some open source tools you may find useful when you work at home. Most are available for Windows, Mac and Linux systems, but check the download site to be sure.

Office Programs

OpenOffice

OpenOffice is the first open source program I ever tried out. It’s a good replacement for Microsoft Office, in my opinion. I’ve been using it for a few years now with no problems. It can read and write documents from other popular office software. You can even use it to create PDF files. It includes Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw and Base programs.

LibreOffice

I’ve seen some people say they prefer LibreOffice to OpenOffice. I haven’t tried this one myself. Some people have been happier with LibreOffice since OpenOffice was acquired by Oracle. Both work in much the same way, allowing you to create, read and write documents that work with other office software. It includes Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math and Base programs, so that you can do all sorts of document work and data processing.

Blogging & Content Management

WordPress

My blog runs on it, so I can’t forget to mention WordPress as an open source tool for working at home. It’s hugely popular, really flexible and just generally nice to use for blogging. There are other open source blogging platforms out there, but WordPress is the big one, which means you can find all kinds of themes and plugins to make it even better.

Drupal

Drupal isn’t just about blogging; it has a lot of modules you can use to configure your website. I’ve used Drupal, but I’m more comfortable with WordPress personally. Still, there are a number of themes and modules you can add to it to make your site look and run just the way you want it to.

Graphics

Inkscape

Inkscape is for creating vector graphics in SVG format. Their goal is to have abilities similar to Illustrator and similar programs. There are some performance problems reported, but overall people like this one.

GIMP

GIMP is a Photoshop alternative. It’s more for working on photographs and other bitmap images rather than vectors. It’s very powerful and flexible. You can import brushes to make your projects even more interesting.

Audio

Audacity

Audacity is a great tool for recording and editing sound files. It’s a good choice if you want to record a podcast. It can edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV or AIFF sound files, cut and splice, or change the speed of a recording.

Productivity

FreeMind

FreeMind is great if you like mind mapping. You can use it for a variety of projects, research, brainstorming and so forth. You can use links in the nodes, making it easier to connect to relevant files or websites. You can export your maps to HTML so you can share your projects online easily.

FreeMind does have some weaknesses. It has minimal image support, and really isn’t made for multiple users. HTML links do not work on all computers. That said, it’s still overall a good program.

Task Coach

Task Coach is great if you like having a to do list. You can synchronize it between your computer and iPhone/iPad. The computer versions are free, while there is a small charge for the iOS versions.

You can use Task Coach to track your progress as you go through the different parts of the tasks you set up. It can track how long you take on tasks and the budget you’ve allowed for it.

Security

KeePass

KeePass is a free way to manage your keywords in a secure manner. You probably know how much trouble it is keeping track of your passwords and creating secure ones. You just have to remember your master password. It uses a strong encryption technique to protect your passwords.

One of the great parts is that you can carry it on a USB stick, allowing you to move between computers with your passwords. This is quite handy if you use more than one computer in your work.

Do you have any favorite open source programs you use when working at home?

Living on a budget and trying to save money isn’t always fun. Sometimes you just wish for a splurge, but you know you can’t afford one. Other times you’re just tired of always thinking about ways to spend less. What do you do when you’re tired of being frugal?

It’s not always easy. There are so many temptations to break the habit, whether it’s hearing from friends and family the fun things they’ve been doing or what they’ve been buying, or the commercials you can hardly avoid on television and online. Still, there are ways to deal with it when you’re tired of it all.

1. Allow small splurges.

What is it you miss most? Is there a way to get it more cheaply?

You may miss going out to see movies, for example. Movie ticket prices have gone up quite a bit, and don’t always fit well into a frugal budget. If you’re lucky enough to have a discount movie theater near you, however, you may be able to see movies somewhat later than others for quite a bit less. There’s a theater in our area, for example, that has $2 tickets, far more affordable that what we’d pay elsewhere.

You can also think about the little treats you enjoy and set a budget for it. If you miss chocolate, for example, you may be able to get chocolate chips and put them in the freezer. Nibbling just a couple rather than having an entire candy bar can save you money so long as you have the self control to not eat too many a day.

2. Tell people what you want if they’re looking for a present for you.

If you miss going out to eat, suggest gift cards to your favorite restaurant as a gift when you have a birthday or Christmas coming up. This may not feel as personal as some people would like, but if that’s what you want more than whatever else someone would buy you, it’s a good gift.

If there’s some other splurge you want that’s within the range of a gift from someone else, let them know when they want gift ideas for you. Sometimes it works out.

3. Look at free ways to get what you want.

It’s amazing what you can get for free sometimes. Libraries are wonderful if you miss getting new books to read, for example. Just how wonderful depends on the libraries in your area and the selection they have in the types of books you like to read. Remember that many libraries are networked to others in your area, and you may be able to order books from other locations.

Also see if there’s an active Freecycle group in your area. You can ask for things you’d like to get. I’ve seen people in my local group ask for things like exercise bikes and get them.

4. Review your financial goals.

You’re being frugal for a reason. It can help you deal with the frustration of being frugal if you remind yourself why you’re going through all that. Are you saving so that you can pay down credit cards or other debts? Think about the benefits of getting rid of those. If you’re being frugal because it’s the only way you can pay all your living expenses, think about how your situation would change if you weren’t managing your money so carefully.

5. Take joy in meeting your financial goals.

Don’t just think of being frugal as a long term goal. Think of your short term goals too. It may be to save a particular amount over a particular month or to cut a particular expense. Having goals where you can see the results is a big help in making frugality more interesting.

Make sure your goals are something you can achieve and you know how you’re going to achieve them. If they aren’t realistic, you’ll be more frustrated than happy with the process.

When you start an online business, you can’t help but make some mistakes. We all do, as it’s a part of the learning process. That said, if you’re aware of the mistakes you can either avoid them or stop making them a little sooner than you would otherwise. Recognizing these mistakes won’t keep you from making other mistakes, but it might improve your learning curve.

Mistake #1: Buying everything for your business that comes along.

List building tools. Business automation tools. Business information and advice.

One thing you learn very quickly when you run a business online is that there’s a ton of information and tools out there for sale, all promising to help you grow your business more quickly. Some of them will even deliver on that promise.

The problem is that many people buy too many things and then never make use of them. Buy a bunch of automation tools, and you probably won’t use them effectively, especially if you don’t really understand what they’re automating or how to do it yourself. Buy too much information and you’ll either waste too much time reading rather than taking action, or you’ll forget about it and never read what you paid for.

Which leads nicely into…

Mistake #2: Spending too little on your business.

Sure, you might be starting out on a shoestring, and you’re determined to bootstrap your way up. It’s possible to grow an online business without spending a ton, but spending some money on your business is an excellent idea.

Yes, some people have done well starting out without spending a single penny, but you’re making things harder than they have to be by refusing to spend on little things such as a domain name, hosting, email list management, and carefully chosen tools and information to grow your business.

Yes, much of that can be had for free. Free is not always the right choice. A free website is at the whim of the company hosting it. Managing your email list yourself is asking for trouble either when your ISP says you’re sending out too much email or you get a spam complaint from someone too lazy to unsubscribe properly.

Free productivity tools can be great, but they can vanish over time. Free information is a wonderful way to get started, but you often have to buy information products when you want to get into the serious details.

There’s a balance between mistakes one and two. Think before you spend. Don’t fall for a pretty sales letter; consider whether or not you really need what is being offered and if you’re ready to use it. Most products will still be there later if it’s not something you need immediately. You’ll save a lot if you limit purchases to what you need at the time.

Mistake #3: Fail to know what’s working and what isn’t.

It’s not always easy to know where traffic and customers are coming to your website. I’ve had my site clobbered by traffic where it wasn’t at all clear how people were learning about me, as it mostly came from people pasting my domain name into the address bar or searching on it. I had to do research to find the articles causing that. The articles mentioned my domain, but had no live links to my site, so it was difficult. Still, I was able to figure it out.

You probably won’t have that problem too often. Most times you can use the data you get from your hosting or from services such as Google Analytics to figure out what’s driving traffic to your site. From there you need enough tracking to see which traffic is converting for you or not to learn what kinds of things are working for you. You want to focus on what works and decide if the stuff that isn’t working is worth trying to improve.

Many people ignore this part. They get traffic, they earn money, they’re happy. The problem is that you don’t really know what’s effective for you, and so you don’t know where to focus your efforts. Sometimes that really slows down the growth of your business and your income.

Mistake #4: Imitating the competition.

You should absolutely know what your competition is doing, but you shouldn’t just be following in their footsteps. It’s much better to make your own path. Sure, there will be similarities to your competition, but get creative and make your business stand out. Find a way to do it better, more quickly or more cheaply. There’s always a way to stand out.

Mistake #5: Fail to prioritize.

Every day you work on your business, the first thing you do is decide what to work on. Most people will choose based on what they feel like working on at the moment. It’s one of the great parts of working for yourself, after all. It’s just not always the right choice.

The first thing you should do each day is decide what’s most important to get done that day. It may not be your favorite part of your business, but if it needs to get done, that’s it. You need to do it because it’s not happening otherwise.

Social networking, for example, is something many people love, and it can be valuable to your online business. The problem is that many people spend too much of their day on it, and the returns aren’t what they should be for the amount of time spent. If that’s the case, you need to be more careful about how you spend your time.

Mistake #6: Starting too many projects at once.

I’m great for this mistake still. I get too many ideas, and it’s hard to keep up with them all. It’s very much a good thing that I don’t try to start all the websites I think of, because it wouldn’t work. There just isn’t that much time in the day.

Start with one website. Work on it, marketing it, tweaking it and try to make it profitable before you allow yourself a new project.

Don’t fall for the bit about if you can get one site making $1 a day, it should be easy to get 100 sites making $100 a day. It sounds great, but it’s just not true. Some will do better, some won’t, and in the meantime you’re increasing the amount of work you have to do to keep up with all those sites. Work that little $1 a day site and learn what you need to know before you start the next one.

It’s possible to run a ton of sites, but it usually involves outsourcing and more experience than you have when you’re starting out. Save your extra ideas for when you know what you’re doing. Then, if you want to give it a try, go for it. Be prepared for the kind of work involved before you try it.

Mistake #7: Fail to test.

Just because something is working for you doesn’t mean it can’t work better. Take some time to test different parts of your sales process and you may find ways to earn more money even if traffic to your site doesn’t increase.

You don’t have to change big things to make a difference. A single word or two may be all you need to change, or the color or placement of your “buy now” button. Simple things can make a big difference.

You don’t want to make big changes all at once because they can disguise which changes are most effective. If change A makes people more interested but change B discourages customers, it’s going to be really hard to tell that you should keep change A, for example.

Give any changes you make some time to work. One day is not always enough, as any difference over a short period of time can be a fluke. A week or so is enough to see what’s happening, depending on how much traffic you get and what your current conversion rate is.

Whatever mistakes you make, don’t get too down about them. It happens to all of us. It’s not the mistakes you make that are bad for your business so much as what you do about them. Failing to learn from your mistakes is the biggest mistake of all.

It’s very common online still to feel that the sales pages you see online are misleading, if not flat out lying about the product they’re offering. It’s such a problem that the FTC has been trying to clamp down, no easy task on something that changes as fast as the internet does. With all the lies out there, is it okay for you to lie on your own sales page?

Personally, I say no. I really hope you do too.

I don’t just mean big lies about product functionality or what you’re offering. I include little lies such as the price or product being available for a limited time when it isn’t or claiming that the product has previously been sold for a higher price or will increase in the future when you have no intention of doing so. Such lies can easily get you into legal trouble, and some payment processors now review such claims and enforce price or availability claims for you.

“But I Have a Great Product!”

Let’s suppose you have a great product to sell, something you know is perfect for your customer base. But you’re concerned it’s going to be a hard sell. Can you lie then?

Why would you? If the product is that good, there should be plenty of truth to tell about it. A lie could actually weaken the product’s quality in a buyer’s eyes, as it will no longer meet expectations. If you think you have to lie in that kind of situation, you need help in writing your sales pages. Time to find a great copywriter and explain the product to him or her.

“But My Competition Lies. I Need to Compete!”

There are times when you shouldn’t give a damn what your competition is doing, or more to the point, when you shouldn’t imitate them. When you believe they’re lying is one of those times. It doesn’t matter what they’re doing, it matters what you do. You don’t want to risk your reputation on a lie. Leave that for those who don’t recognize the value of a good reputation in business.

Seriously. Think of Your Reputation

The problem with lying isn’t just the potential for legal trouble, although that can be plenty serious, and could cost you your entire business. But even if you don’t get legal troubles, lying eventually means the loss of your reputation. That cuts down the odds of your future success.

If you care about your home business, take care of its reputation and your own. Develop a reputation as someone who offers quality products and/or services, and your business is more likely to grow. Spoil that with a deliberate lie, and you’ll ruin whatever trust you’ve gained by your work in the past.

A lie may improve your sales, there’s no doubt of that. But increasing sales doesn’t matter if it increases your refund rate, especially as payment processors look poorly upon accounts with high refund rates. You also lose your chance at future sales if you lose the trust of customers.

What About Exaggeration?

What if you’re “merely” exaggerating a claim? Is that okay?

Come on. Really. Do you really need to ask that?

Especially if you want to meet rules set forth by the FTC, you had better be able to prove any claims you make, and know what average results are. You also have to do so clearly. No teeny, tiny disclaimers about results being atypical.

I know sometimes people get amazing results from things they do. That doesn’t mean everyone does, and it doesn’t mean everything you try to sell must get amazing results. What matters is that the results are good enough to make people want to buy it, and that they have a good chance of having such success if they do whatever it is they’re supposed to do.

I’ll admit that it’s sometimes hard to tell what’s a lie and what isn’t, mostly because what’s possible for one person won’t be possible for another. You may have had success doing something, but it won’t always translate for others.