I went sailing last week. From Maryport down to Whitehaven. Just a two day 'adventure' but enough to blow away the cobwebs and get a few ideas rattling around.

It seems I wasn't the only one. I met a couple who live on a magnificent yacht half the year then when winter comes take down the sails and hoist the boat out of the water to be overhauled.

I met the couple who were in their 40's, at Whitehaven Marina. They didn't look to be at retirement age yet so as the wine flowed I gently asked them how they managed to live on their boat for half a year at a time. The answer of course was the Internet.

I would love to tell you what business they were in but they made me promise not to, and quite frankly I'm not surprised - it's a terrific idea! I thought I had come across every type of Internet business going - it seems not.

What I can say it that it started me thinking about how easy it would be to work from my own boat! It's all about quality of life, and I don't think I've met one single person in my life - not ONE - who had quality of life (lots of free time, lots of money and less stress) and was an employee.

The two just don't go together. I know I waffle on about it all the time but if you're reading this then the chances are it's niggling away at the back of your mind all the time.

You cannot be free and be an employee

It's impossible. Make the first steps today, and whether you want to work from a boat, a bar or Bridlington doesn't matter - it's the choice to be able to do it if you want that's important. Employers don't let you do that. Ever.

More soon

sara
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Now is the winter of our discontent.

Winter brings with it two things. Colder weather and an increase in people who decide once and for all that they've had enough of working 40 hours a week to make someone else rich. This is good for me because I make my living helping people to quit their jobs and work full time from home.

Karen emailed me last week. I could almost smell the euphoria in her email as she told me she'd left work. She didn't go into the details but it seemed that the final straw had come about at work when her boss had decided she could no longer have the time off she'd booked back in August. She presented him with a stream of verbal abuse in front of her colleagues then stormed out. Another Winter Job Quitter.

So she emailed me, happy as the day is long to tell me she'd done it. 'What do I do now'? She asked. I paused mid-sandwich and told her I didn't know - what did she want to do?

We chatted for a while and I asked her how long she could last on her present savings, and what money she was owed from work. About three weeks it seemed was the maximum she could survive for without having to start selling the furniture. Most people are in this situation. I remember hearing an interview with a homeless man on the radio. The interviewer was extremely condescending towards him. Eventually the down and out lost his temper and yelled

'Look - you can look at me and shake your head but the fact is that most of you are only three months salary from being in exactly the same position!'

I think three months is a very generous estimate. I think most people would start getting nasty phone calls within four weeks. Yet we feel that a 'nine to five' is secure??

I went through a few ideas with Karen and she worked at her new business 20 hours a day for two weeks. She struggled as her online income remained low througout this time. Four months later she earns more than her boss did. She has money in the bank, but her ex-colleagues tell her they're still waiting for her to return. Doesn't she miss the security?

I think they'll have along wait.

Well it's Sunday morning and yesterday the last of my 'car boot' income streams finished for the Winter (if you would like more info about this check out my newsletter site issue 2), so it's time to start thinking about a couple of new streams for Winter.

My other businesses and income streams, websites, auctions, products etc are all quietly providing my income but being a girl with northern values I know that I won't be happy until I replace this stream with another one. Although next summer I'll be starting it up again.

So how does winter help me to set up a new stream, that'll hopefully bring in around £1,000 a month, like the one that I've just lost did?

Well winter is the time that many peoplewantt to start working from home. Cold, dark mornings - struggling to start the car or standing at a freezing bus stop or train stationconjuree up visions of sitting down at the PC in your warm house, with coffee and biscuits to sustain you.

It is exactly like that in my house over winter, as my waistline will prove in spring!

In my last newsletter I gave mysusbcriberss a fabulous free ebook on website optimisation. This really was top of the range info, so before the winter blues get you down too much why not start putting one or two of the tips in the book into practice?

If you feel you don't have a website why not set up aneBayy shop for a couple of pounds a month. By directing 100 extra hits to youreBayy site a month you could be making a couple of hundred pounds in extra sales. This in turn brings you closer to being able to afford to quit your job.

It's all done a little at a time. Finish reading this blog now and sit down and write an article on something that interests you. Find a way to tie it into youreBayy auction site oreBayy shop, or any other sales site you might have and submit it to one of the free articles sites that are all over the Internet. I have one article that is well on the way to buying me a boat! Not a huge one, but a boat none the less.

You can find info on where to submit articles by reading the free Site Optimisation ebook that comes with issue 2 of my newsletter, or by just doing a Google search.

A bit at a time. That's how most people quit their jobs for their own internet business.

Five breakfasts a day?

Well this is a new blog for me. I stopped the old one when I launched my newsletter but I missed it! My newsletter (subscribe for free using the link on the right) is attracting subscribers faster than I can think and as usual I find myself working into the night.

If you haven't checked it out you can find back issues at the above website and with £100 worth of freebies in the latest issue it's worth having a look at. Plug over!

Talking about working into the night, it took me several years to work out when my 'optimum work time' was. It seems research has shown that people are very different when it comes to productivity at work. For example I work best first thing in the morning 6am onwards, then late at night 11pm onwards.

This is the time when I seem to get my most productive work done. Employers might benefit from realising that the person who is always half an hour late for work might be an afternoon person and do most of his productive work after 1pm, whereas others should start at 5am, and leave at lunchtime.

One prolific author I know works best after breakfast so to make sure he's productive all day he has two or three naps during the day, then wakes, has a snack and his body thinks it's time for work again.

Have a productive week.