The decision to work from home has many benefits, but with it  comes responsibility. There are ways, though, to ensure that working at home will be successful. Here are 5 self-help tips that will help you prepare and be productive.

Dedicate a Space for Work

Many women and men are choosing transcription as a career because it can be done from home, but you must decide where you will work. For example, if you choose a spare room or the dining room table, make sure you have all your supplies readily available. Organize your work area so you will be more productive. If you are a transcriptionist have your equipment set up and ready. And remember: keep out distractions. Make your work area YOUR work area and nothing more.

Eliminate Interruptions While Working

It takes discipline to stick to a schedule. The doorbell might ring occasionally, kids or your spouse might want your attention and time, etc. How do you manage interruptions? Sit down and explain to your family that while you are working you are not available unless it is an emergency. Put a do not disturb sign up to remind family when you are working. You can also put a sign on the front door, so visitors do not ring the bell during certain hours.

Keep a To-do List 

Don’t forget important details or deadlines; keep a visible list. Get a whiteboard or corkboard and put up a printed list of daily tasks. Check off what you accomplish and stick to your plans. Also remember to prioritize your tasks based on time sensitivity and importance.

Set a Schedule for Working

There is no time clock to punch, but you need to work. Print out a schedule that you will stick with, and remember you can be flexible. In order to work effectively you need to create a routine and stick to it.

Keep Accurate Records 

Set up a spreadsheet and record your work time, assignments, pay, expenses, etc. Print it out monthly and go over it. What did you spend most time doing? What did you do the fastest (what are you best at)? Focus on the latter and try to improve the former. This will only increase your efficiency, boost your productivity, pad your wallet and make you more attractive to employers.

For every gallon of gas consumed by an automobile, 19.4 pounds of carbon dioxide are produced and released into the atmosphere. CO2 is considered to be one of the leading factors in the greenhouse effect, which is producing global warming. We at GMR Transcription have developed a business model that makes a commitment to reducing our carbon footprint, and we take pride in the fact that we are a green company.

Our transcriptionists work from home, eliminating the daily commute to the office. The average one-way drive to work in the U. S. is 16 miles, round trip 32 miles. A vehicle with a fuel consumption of 25 miles per gallon releases 124 pounds of CO2 each week. This is representative of the weekly negative impact on the environment of just one employee. 

By working at home, our transcriptionists reduce our overall carbon footprint, reduce the consumption of nonrenewable fossil fuels and save money. The burning of fossil fuels last year was a primary contributor to the 30.6 billion tons of CO2 released into the atmosphere. Last year the national average gas price fluctuated from a high of $3.94 to a low of $3.00 per gallon. Using the 25 MPG example above, this is a weekly cost savings of $25.22 to $19.20 and does not include the savings associated with the costs of wear and tear on the vehicle. 

As a member of the transcription industry, we are committed to doing our part to help save the environment while continuing to provide quality professional service to our clients. GMR and our employees are proud to say we’ve gone green.

In today’s business environment, an endless string of meetings, interviews, conferences and seminars are being conducted and there is always the need to record the proceedings of these events for further analysis and review.

To maintain the records of the business meetings and events, transcription services are the most important functions that have to be performed by businesses in a best possible manner and there is where the services of professional transcription companies come to use. They ensure the best quality and accurate transcripts without compromising your preferred formats. Overall efficiency and profits of your company will be influenced in a positive manner.

The first strategy is to discover what you are passionate about or could be. The transcription business requires an enthusiasm for the subject being transcribed and a keen interest in developing the best transcription in the fastest way. This is one of the challenges that should always be met with enthusiasm. You will not fare well if you do not like the work, or the schedule. You then may stay passionate about money, but that will not get you past the starting gate.

 The second strategy is ascertaining if there is a profitable market for transcription work. You are looking for dependable clients that are easy to communicate with. There may be many similar services in the area, and then you will need to find a way to become noticed.

 The third strategy is finding the problems that current users of transcription services may be experiencing and that you can solve. Solving a problem for a business is almost a guarantee of getting business.

 The fourth strategy is developing your solution to a problem. The best solutions often are in the minds of people in the business market segment that you want to win over.

 The fifth strategy is developing a plan to either find transcription jobs based on what you have learned so far, or to start a transcription service based on the tools you have acquired in your research. You will have learned about the transcription business and transcription jobs and applying what learnt is the best strategy for success. Applying means working hard at getting the five tasks accomplished. The information will not come easily, but perseverance will be required from the beginning and for all the time you are working in the field.

Getting a degree in a field you enjoy opens many doors of opportunities for you. You can gain financial independence and self-fulfillment. Without a degree you may find yourself working dead end jobs with no hope for success. No matter what your dream career is you can generally find a degree related to that field. For example, a certification in transcription can lead to a career as a transcriptionist.  

Note: while there is no degree in transcription we are always looking for certified transcribers to work with our team.

As a transcriptionist you require to type what a speaker is saying into text. You will need to type exactly what is said with the correct punctuation to match the speaker’s tone. This fast growing career may even allow you the flexibility to work in an office setting or in the comfort of your own home.

 For transcription careers that are in a particular field, such as the medical industry, you will need to be familiar with the field’s terminology as it is essential that the words dictated to you are spelled correctly. A certification in transcription is just one of the many options available to you. When choosing which type of degree to pursue to achieve your dream career, remember such factors such as your goals, interests and time constraints that you may have. However, the most important factor in obtaining a degree that will lead to your dream career is to not give up and do whatever it takes to achieve your dreams.

Language transcription and translation has become a norm in the United States, especially in states like California, Nevada, Arizona and Texas. It has actually become so prevalent that many people speak English, Spanish or both. Both languages are dominant, and in fact, the state of New Mexico has both English and Spanish as official languages.

So when you have a long and complicated speech or audio file that you need transcribed and translated to text, there’s little doubt that you will need a good transcription company to make sure the documents are translated properly. Learning a new language is difficult and takes a long time to learn and truly comprehend what other people are saying. Actually understanding the audio and being able to properly translate and transcribe is very difficult and time-consuming. Even native speakers sometimes cannot understand their own tongue because some people just speak way too fast.

Whether it is a video transcription or audio transcription, today’s globalized world means that languages are crossing cultural boundaries all the time. Just look at how quickly the Spanish speaking community is rising in the US. English and Spanish are the 2nd and 3rd most spoken languages in the world behind Mandarin, with nearly 700 million people worldwide speaking them. In this great melting pot of ours, however, having documents and being able to switch between couple of different languages can be vital for a company. With globalization being a way of life now, translating documents is important, whether that company in Mexico wants to do business with the U.K. or the U.S. Company wants to send a document to Argentina.

The world will only continue to evolve, so utilizing professional transcription services is a really good idea for many companies. Even if used as an educational tool (with movies, songs and other multimedia presentations) being translated and transcribed, students will have a better and easier time learning the material and being engaged while doing so.

The reason for transcription is to provide the viewer diverse means to view the content you wish to provide. Instead of just an audio and/or video file, the audience can follow along and further their understanding of the content. It is also used to optimize the text content for search engine rankings. A video, podcast and audio transcription is also being by bloggers to increase their viewership since many have not yet hopped on the bandwagon.

 Very importantly and on more creative lines, transcriptions help bloggers free up time to write content for other blog posts, to become diverse and multiply content in text and audio or video. Transcriptions can help them brand themselves by using logos and also search engine optimize their blog/website.  It helps get traffic to the website by indexing the content only if it is high quality text. The podcast transcription can also be converted into an ebook and give you another publishable material to spread to your target market.

 Thus SEO is crucial for an online business, or any business for that matter, and transcription is a very beneficial tool to help taking care of it. SEO looks into what people are searching for, what they’re typing into their search engines and which engines are most popular. This is essential for an Internet marketing strategy in today’s world and is also a convenient way of making money!

 Stuck in a rut? Looking for some fun things to do? Want to make this holiday season a unique and memorable one? Here’s a list of fun seasonal activities for the whole family.

 1. BAKE BAKE BAKE!! Okay okay, I know all about those dreaded holiday lbs. (trust me… holidays for me = attack of the sweets!). But let’s face it… what’s the holidays without a cookie baking party? Invite friends and family, tell them each to bring different types of cookie dough (having an e-mail list pre-party is a good idea to organize this), and enjoy each other’s company and tasty creations. Be creative, try some new recipes, and go to town on sugar and frosting!

 2. String up homemade popcorn garlands. Hang these around your house and don’t be afraid to eat them when you’re hungry. Think of it this way… you’re putting up decorations and slowly taking them down by eating them. What a way to take out some of the work of taking down decorations!

 3. Cut out paper snowflakes. No matter where you are in the world, this will really fill your home with that ‘White Holiday’ cheer that we all love.

 4. Draw and publish your own short tale as an eBook. You can publish your own book on the Internet for free and give it as a gift to everyone in the family.

 5. Take a holiday themed family portrait. Everyone needs to put on a pair of fake reindeer antlers and pose for a photograph as least once in their life. Just don’t forget the red nose.

 6. Make homemade holiday cards. Get out the markers, scissors, glue and glitter to create your own cards this year, and send them to family and friends. People appreciate things that are hand-made and don’t come from a photo store, right?

 7. Put on a pair of skates and hit the ice rink. If you’re in a cold climate, head to a frozen pond or lake and glide over the frozen water. If you’re in a warm climate, go online and check out the nearest ice skating rinks (trust me, there are tons around during the holidays).

 8. Board games! A great way to bring the family together is by pulling out some of those board games that never see the light of day and playing with your family and friends. They’re a great way to bond and connect with your loved ones (especially with sibling rivalries, right?). And at the end of the day, who doesn’t like good ‘ol game of Monopoly? Or Parcheesi? Or… to go with the holiday theme and #1… Candyland!!

 9. Donate your time to a local charity. The holidays are all about family, but some are not so fortunate to be around theirs. Donate some time volunteering for a local community organization and really bring a smile to someone’s face. As easy as it may sound, two hours of your time can really bring joy to someone’s life.

 10. We all love eggnog, but why not make your own? It’s really easy and can really impress your friends and family. Here’s my favorite recipe that is sure to knock the socks off of your company.

•  12 eggs, separated
• 6 cups milk (preferably whole)
• 2 cups heavy cream (hey, we’re not watching calories right now…)
• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground nutmeg (for the top)
• And, to make it ‘Funnog’…
• 2 cups bourbon
• ¾ cup brandy

 The holiday season is a time to appreciate family and make memories with the most special people in your lives. These activities are only the tip of the iceberg (no pun intended), but will hopefully get your creative juices flowing for some fun holiday activities.

Knowing the words of a language isn’t the same as truly understanding it. Idiomatic speech, regional dialects, slang and subtle differences in connotation flow naturally for native speakers. For translators and transcriptionists working in a second or third language, many of the nuances of the language are lost. 

Intuitive knowledge of which word to use comes only with decades of experience with a language. Mistakes in translation can be unintentionally grotesque or amusing – not emotions that businesses or scholars want to provoke in readers. The English words “corpse” and “body” overlap, but aren’t always synonymous. When a native English speaker watches a police drama on television, the actors use the terms interchangeably. However, a native speaker would never refer to body lotion as “corpse lotion,” a mistake that a non-native translator could easily make. (And I’ve seen this before no joke.)

Baseball has given the English language a host of idiomatic phrases such as “cover all the bases” or “ballpark figure” that would baffle a translator who had little knowledge of the sport. Idiomatic speech is so closely identified with native speakers that soldiers use idioms as passwords to identify friendly troops returning to base. The same cultural quirks and idioms leaven other languages, too. A Spanish translation service that transcribed the phrase “mantenerse en sus trece” as a directive to “maintain your thirteens” would be literally correct, but would lose all the sense of the phrase’s connotation of “sticking to one’s guns.” 

Regional inflections make language even more complex for the non-native translator. While a Mandarin translation will reach most Chinese readers, text intended for Shanghainese readers should incorporate the related, but different Wu language, not Mandarin Chinese. English readers recognize these regional differences when they compare text written for an American audience with that prepared for readers in the United Kingdom. To an American, an article involving boots and bonnets sounds like a fashion article; to an English reader, it’s clearly referring to cars.

Native speakers who translate from a second language to their mother tongue go beyond the word-for-word transcription that translation services offer. They’re able to glean the meaning from the words as well as the dictionary definitions and choose the most natural options in their native language.

Whether picking up some extra work at home to cover holiday expenses or working a full time job from a home office, working from home has myriad benefits, especially during the winter holiday season. Here are a few that I thought of this morning and I thought I’d share with you.

Spend More Time with Your Family
The holidays are all about family. Going to an office during the season is no fun because you’re stuck at your job while your family is back home having family time. When you work from home and make your own schedule you can fit in work when it’s convenient for you, rather than fitting in your family when you have the time. The time spent with your family around the holidays is so important and being in control of your work schedule fosters more time with the most important people in your life.

The Money
Especially in a (still) downturned economy, working from home generally means that you can keep picking up as much work as you like. There’s greater competition around the holiday season since everybody wants to make the extra cash, but if you’re skilled and can produce good work quickly you can earn a lot of extra income. How many jobs let you work from home, select your own hours and let you choose how much work you actually want to do. If something pops up and you can’t work for a few days, don’t pick up work. If you’re free for a week and extra motivated, you can pick up 60 hours of work if you want and really bring in extra cash. And who doesn’t want extra money during the holiday season, right?

Make Your Own Gift-Shopping Hours
This is one of the big ones for the holiday season. Beat the lines, find the best deals and buy your holiday gifts without fighting the crowds. You don’t need to fight a crowd if there’s no crowd at the stores when you go. You will also have more money to spend on gifts and can really spoil your family, a true win-win situation.