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What to Wear To A Show On Broadway

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Whether you’ve been waiting your whole life for your first Broadway show or are being dragged to your first show by an enthusiastic fan, you want to look good. Here’s the good news — on Broadway, almost anything goes fashion-wise. Most theaters don’t have dress codes. Wondering what to wear to an upcoming Broadway show? Then, check out these ideas.

1. Make your own kind of music. 

You don’t have to bend your sense of style to see a Broadway show. Instead, you can wear almost whatever you want. Most Broadway audiences strike a variety of style notes. Some come dressed to the nines in tuxedos and formals, while others (tourists and New Yorkers alike) roll in in flip-flops and shorts. 


2. Dress up for special performances.
That said, if you’re going to a special performance, you should put on a little extra shine. This includes previews, opening nights, and gala nights. In other words, if the tickets to your show weren’t easily available to the public, you might want to polish your shoes, get your hair done, and try to look a little spiffy. 

3. Think about where you’re going before and after the show.

Because anything goes on Broadway, you don’t necessarily have to think about what you should wear to the show. Instead, think about where you’re going before or after the show, and then, let those activities dictate your wardrobe. If you’re going out to a fine dining establishment, men might need to wear a sports coat and tie, while cocktail dresses may be perfect for the women in your group. If you’re hitting a matinee and then going on a long walking tour of the city, you might prefer to wear something a little more comfortable with tennis shoes. Whether you go fancy or casual, don’t forget that this is an event that you’ll probably want to capture for Instagram or the family scrapbook, so dress accordingly. Even if you’re not into photos, one of your friends is likely to snag a few shots.

4. Coordinate with your friends

You can wear nearly anything to a Broadway show, but you don’t want to show up in a sports jersey while the rest of your crew is in formal gowns. Reach out to your friends before you go to the show, and coordinate what you’re wearing. You don’t have to all come in the same palette — unless you want to take some family photos after the show — but it’s nice to be in a similar spot on the casual-to-formal spectrum.

5. Think about the show.

It goes without saying that the most important part of this experience is the show. Some shows require you to dress a certain way. For instance, you want to be comfortable for long shows and able to move for immersive productions. In other cases, you may want to emulate the long-standing Rocky Horror Picture Show tradition and wear something that gives a shout-out to your favorite character. In all cases, remember that the show is on the stage — don’t wear any hats or outfits that draw focus away from the main attraction. Other than that, just have fun with your outfit choices, and most importantly, get ready to sit back and enjoy the show.    

Eyebrow Grooming For Men

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Messy, unkempt eyebrows can make you look like Bert of Bert and Ernie fame on a good day and like Sasquatch on a bad day. But with just a little effort, you can tame your scraggly brows. Manicured brows accentuate your facial structure and complement your eyes. Luckily, you don’t have to head to the spa or use a wax pot at home. Instead, you can keep your brows on point with these simple maintenance tips. 

1. Start with brushing.
To get a sense of how to groom your eyebrows, brush them upward. This will show you which hairs are overgrown and need to be cut. A mustache comb works great for guys with thick brows, while a mascara wand is better for thin brows. You don’t have to buy the mascara to get the wand. You can buy clean wands on their own online or at most drug stores.


2. Shape the brows.
Using a very small pair of scissors, trim the hairs that extend above the brow line when brushed upward. Buy a small scissor designed for facial hair maintenance for this job. This gives you more accuracy, and many of these scissors are curved to accommodate your face comfortably. Be very careful that you don’t cut too deeply or you may end up making a hole in your brow. Remember, the brows will get brushed back down. You just want to clean them up. 

3. Grab the tweezers.

Get ahold of some tweezers and use them to pluck any hairs that aren’t with the group. This includes stray hairs under, above, or on the sides of your brows, and of course, it includes all of the hairs that pop up in your monobrow area. Don’t skimp on cost when picking out your tweezer. The cheapest options usually aren’t great at grabbing little hairs. If you want your brows to look good, you need to spring for a decent tweezer. 

Unfortunately, you can’t substitute a razor for this step. If you try to shave off errant eyebrow hairs, you’ll often end up removing some of your main eyebrow. Additionally, the hair tends to regrow faster if you try to rely on shaving. 

4. Thin out bulk with an eyebrow trimmer. 

While razors aren’t advisable, men with extra shaggy brows may want to look into trimmers. These are very small handheld electric trimmers that can help you clean up eyebrow, nose, and ear hairs. You need a trimmer designed for these body parts — beard trimmers are too big to work on men’s eyebrows. Once you’ve got the right trimmer, simply run it over your brows to thin down the volume. 

5. Brush the brows into shape

Once you’ve trimmed and plucked, it’s time to brush your eyebrows back into shape. First, splash some water on your face to remove any loose hairs from your skin. Then, you can use the same comb that you used when you trimmed your brows, or you may be happy with just your fingers. In both cases, just brush along your natural brow line. Then, retry and pluck as necessary. For a clean slick look, some men enjoy using a clear brow gel, while others add thickness and intrigue with a colored gel. 

Would Winning The Lottery Really Improve Your Life?

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The average American spends a little over $200 per year on lottery tickets, but the vast majority of people don’t win. In fact, you’re more likely to get struck by lightning twice than to win the lottery once. However, in spite of these staggering statistics, a few people do win the lottery and get to take home fat stacks of cash. But are they happy? Does winning the lottery change their lives for the better? Take a look at these stories. 

1. You get a lot more friends, which isn’t always a good thing. 
More friends sounds like a good thing, but it isn’t if they’re just hanging around to get some of your wealth. When Sandra Hayes of Missouri won a $224 million lottery prize, she was generous enough to split the winning with 11 people, but her other friends weren’t happy. They kept expecting her to pay for everything.

For Oregon-winner, Stacey Lowry, the needy friend effect was so intense that she had to move. Her entire neighborhood wanted gifts and cash, and when she wouldn’t comply, they turned against her. She moved to another town to hide from her new-found fame.

2. Greed can backfire or even become life-threatening. 
In 1996, lottery winner Denise Rossi quickly divorced her husband as soon as she realized that she had won a $1.3 million jackpot. Her intention was to hide the money from her now ex-spouse. However, a few years later, he cottoned on to her greedy plot and went to the courts who ordered her to give all of her winnings to him. 

Another lottery winner almost lost his life due to greed. After William Post won $16.2 million in 1988, his brother hired a hitman to take him out. Luckily, the plot was unsuccessful, but on an emotional level, Post lost a brother forever. 

3. Winning comes with a heightened risk of bankruptcy.

Everybody thinks that if they have a few million they’ll be set for life, but lottery winners indicate that this just isn’t true. Even people who have won hundreds of millions of dollars have lost it all in just a few years. Many people make too many extravagant purchases, while others opt for bad investments and lavish gifts to friends.

The result — about a third of lottery winners declare bankruptcy not long after winning. To avoid this trap, lottery winners need to realize that money management is about setting the right habits. It’s not just about how much money you have in the bank. To protect themselves, winners should find trustworthy financial advisors.

4. The loot doesn’t come with happiness. 

Research dating back almost 50 years shows that winning the lottery doesn’t necessarily make you happy. A bump in comfort can help to boost happiness levels for people who struggle financially, but once you reach a reasonable level of economic comfort, most people’s happiness levels don’t fluctuate if they get more money. 

Most lottery winners feel content financially (until they blow their winnings and declare bankruptcy), but the winnings don’t spread joy into the rest of their lives. Winners still worry about health, relationships, and personal fulfillment just as much as they did before they won.

5. You lose your privacy.

Most lottery winners get a lot of media coverage. Being in the limelight can be exciting for a minute, but that quickly fades for most winners. When the world knows that you have a new bundle of cash, people start hitting you up to give them gifts or invest in their companies. Of course, there’s also the embarrassing scrutiny that you get if you spend all your money and end up in the poor house again. 

A Brief History Of The Humble Crossword

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Crossword puzzles might be the most popular word game in the world. Doing a crossword puzzle can both stimulate and relax players. But where did the humble crossword originate? Let’s discover the history of this interesting game.  

The Origin of Crossword Puzzles

The first known crossword puzzles appeared in England during the 1800s. Known as word squares, these early puzzles featured basic content and designs. They were included in children’s puzzle books and magazines. 

Crossword Puzzles Evolve

In 1913, leaders at The New York World newspaper in the U.S. asked writer Arthur Wynne to create a new game for the FUN section. Loosely based on word squares, his word-cross creation was published in the December 21, 1913 edition. However, the name was transposed to cross-word a few weeks later. Eventually, the hyphen was dropped. 

Wynne also spent years updating the puzzle’s design. His original rendition incorporated a diamond shape with numbers in certain boxes and no black boxes. Eventually, his tweaks became the modern-day design with a large box, a horizontal and vertical rectangle shape, empty black squares, and numbered white squares. 

Meanwhile, other newspapers in the U.S. began publishing their own puzzles with varied shapes, sizes and accuracy. Front page banners invited readers to skip troubling headline news and proceed directly to the puzzle section. By 1924, crossword puzzle collections were introduced. Likewise, crossword-themed musicals, comic strips and clothing reflected the puzzle’s booming popularity. Librarians also reported an influx of world-be puzzlers searching dictionaries and encyclopedias for clue answers. 

A decade after its U.S. origins, the popular puzzle returned to Europe. The new craze was first published in either Pearson’s Magazine in February 1922 or the Sunday Express in 1925. British puzzle authors also customized the game. For example, D. S. Macnutt took a pen name and wrote governing rules for the Cryptic and Super Cryptic puzzles.

The crossword also continued to mature in the U.S., thanks partly to the New York Times, which published its first crossword on February 15, 1942. This paper’s decision-makers had previously refused to publish the primitive puzzle and assumed the trend would fizzle. Ironically, staff members experienced a change of heart after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. They decided that solving puzzles would give readers a reprieve and distraction from tragic world events. However, publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger insisted on offering the best crossword in the nation. He hired veteran crossword editor Margaret Petherbridge Farrar to supervise the puzzle. Farrar instituted standard grids and the Sunday Breakfast Test that requires clues and answers to be appropriate for all players, trends that many future puzzle publishers adopted.  

The Crossword is Here to Stay

The humble crossword has indeed grown immensely over the years. Today, it’s a staple in many homes and provides hours of engaging entertainment. And here are more fun facts. 

*The inaugural American crossword puzzle tournament was held in Connecticut in 1978. Its organizer, 25-year-old puzzle maker Will Shortz, became the future editor of The New York Times puzzle and the unofficial crossword king. 

*The first online crossword was published on January 22, 1996. 

*Published on June 30, 2016, in Japan, the largest crossword puzzle included 66,666 clues. 

*Hugh Stephenson’s book Secrets of the Setters offers clues that help players untangle advanced-level puzzles.  

Does Social Media Increase Political Polarization?

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Political polarization divides people into two groups with completely opposing views. Examples are pro-life vs. pro-choice, liberal vs. conservative, and Democrats vs. Republicans.

2014 Pew Research pointed out many years ago that studies showed a strong move away from the center by both American political parties. This shift caused the center position to decrease to 39% in 2014, down from 49% in 1994.

In 2021 Pew Research, the center shrunk to 37%. Those in the contemporary center have little to no interest in politics. The center’s disappearance from the political conversation reinforces the feeling that political polarization is growing.

Republicans and Democrats agree on very little, except they share the belief of having almost nothing in common with the other party. Four out of five people from both parties say they fundamentally disagree with the other side about core American values. Political polarization creates affiliations of being either Red or Blue but nothing in-between.

Social Media Increases Political Polarization

Social media substantially increases the intensity of political polarization. The Brookings Institution research found that a relationship exists between social media platforms and extreme polarization that may erode democratic values and increase partisan violence. 

Engagement

The goal of social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tik Tok and others, is to keep people using their systems as much as possible. This use allows them to monetize their users’ attention and track information to sell to advertisers. This process is engagement.

Engagement is the interaction and activity with social media content. Creating a powerful reaction in a viewer by sensationalizing political issues (including spreading misinformation) is far more engaging than a boring presentation of facts.

Addiction to the Release of Dopamine

People are obsessed with social media because of its constantly changing 24/7 modality, unpredictability, the tiny pieces of information (or misinformation) it offers, and the reward cues such as likes, shares, followers, etc. Those characteristics stimulate the release of a neurotransmitter (brain chemical) called dopamine, which is pleasurable.

Research into addictive behaviors suggests that dopamine triggered by social media use is so powerful it is harder to resist than the addiction to alcohol or cigarettes.

Social Media Algorithms, Media Bubbles, Echo Chambers, and Confirmation Bias

The goal of any social media system is to attract new users and keep existing users engaged with the system. A social media algorithm is an AI-driven computer program that selects content choices based on user profiles to keep users coming back for more.

The system tracks what you do and how you engage with content and then presents similar content or its best guess of what content you might like to keep you as engaged as possible.

When you engage with certain content, like watching a specific news piece, you will see that type of content presented to you on your next use of the system. This phenomenon is a “media bubble.”

 An “echo chamber” effect happens when you get more content that matches previous content. Confirmation bias occurs when a user looks for content that reinforces a previously-held opinion. All of this leads to increased political polarization shaped by social media use.

Facebook denies doing this and says mainstream media and cable news spreads more disinformation than social media.

Conclusion

Overwhelming research shows that social media increases political polarization.  Social media use allows the easy spread of misinformation and makes it difficult to tell what is legitimate. Social media use makes political polarization more intense.

Are Algorithms Breeding Extremist Violence?

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To help evaluate the impact of social media algorithms on extreme violence, we will try to answer these questions:

  • What are the trends in America regarding extreme violence?
  • Are individuals engaged in extreme violence influenced by social media?
  • How do social media algorithms work, and what is their purpose?

Extreme Violence Increases in America

A serious increase in extreme violence is the conclusion of the May 2021 Strategic Intelligence Assessment and Data on Domestic Terrorism report created by the combined efforts of the  Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security. This report submitted to the Intelligence Committee (IC) of Congress and released to the public summarizes a horrifying reality.

Individuals who are violent domestic extremists (DVEs) and small cells of DVEs are more inclined to engage in violent attacks than any organization. An individual’s radicalization is more likely to come from consuming violent extremist content online than from joining organized groups and participating in person.

Social Media’s Influence

Research supported by the National Institute of Justice concluded that social media influences individuals who participate in extreme violence and hate crimes.

The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, or START, examined social media use by extremists. The study, Social Learning and Social Control in the Off and Online Pathways to Hate and Extremist Violence, focuses on cases after 2007. This era is the time when social media platforms experienced significantly-increased usage.

Here are some of the findings:

Ideologies

  • 58% of the DVEs believe radical right-wing ideology
  • 40% got motivation by radical Islamic ideology
  • 2% had an association with a far-left ideology

Social Media Use

DVEs have social media accounts to connect with like-minded extremists. They use social media to publish their manifestos. Some try to live-stream their attacks until the social media systems take the content down.

  • 17.2 % of DVEs use Facebook. This usage is significantly higher than other social media systems.
  • 5.7% had Twitter and YouTube accounts.
  • More individuals with radical right-wing ideologies use Facebook.
  • More Islamic extremists (3.8%) use Twitter than radical-right extremists (1.8%).
  • Instagram had the lowest use at 3%.

Social Media Algorithms

An algorithm is an artificial intelligence program that aims to keep the users of social media systems addicted to using the system. They call this “engagement.” These systems value usage over all other concerns because they derive revenues from advertisers based on system usage.

Addictive algorithms push people to harmful content automatically. False, misleading, and sensational content increases use. The algorithms are predatory and serve content related to what you previously reacted with using clickbait techniques. This self-reinforcing feedback loop may cause mental health problems for heavy social media users.

The Facebook whistleblower, Frances Haugen, testified before the UK Parliament. She said that social media platforms, such as Facebook, which use opaque algorithms to spread harmful content, need more scrutiny and regulation. Without these controls, they may trigger increased violent events, such as the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol.

Conclusion

Whatever tendencies a person has to participate in extremist violence, social media does little to reduce these factors. The social media algorithms, by their design, encourage more division, reinforce radical beliefs, bring attention to hate crimes, and support political polarization, which has already led to more extreme violence in America. Social media is not the only factor but plays a significant role in increasing extreme violence.

A Brief History Of Mastodon

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Mastodon is free and open-source software (FOOS) that anyone can use. Mastodon is a system of federated (linked) microblogging websites. Eugen Rochko wrote the software. He was born in Russia and now lives in Germany.

Here is the historical timeline.

Early 2016

Eugen Rochko started working on Mastodon as a side project while in school studying for his computer science degree from a German University.

Late 2016

A few months after graduating, 24-year-old Rochko released his first version, 0.1.0 of Mastodon, on Oct. 6, 2016. The first instance of the software runs on the server at the website Mastodon.social. It began with 45 users. (Note: The original server maxed out at 200,000 users, but new Mastodon users can join any of the many other interlinked servers).

2017

Mastodon starts to get media attention and is described by some as a “Twitter Killer.”

In April 2017, the administrator, nullkal, created the first Japanese server, mstdn.jp, in his apartment. The news went viral, and the server had tens of thousands of new accounts within a few days.

2018

In May 2018, after new laws were passed in the US, Assembly Four founded switter.at, a Mastodon server for sex workers. It grew quickly to over 400,000 accounts. (Note: The site shut down on Mar. 14, 2022, due to legal pressures.)

Sept. 5, 2018, Mastodon version 2.5 was released. It is the 100th version of the software.

On Oct. 6, 2018, Mastodon celebrated its second anniversary. The network had grown to 1,627,557 registered users, with Mastodon instances running on 3,460 independently-administrated servers.

Mastodon servers are part of the federated network and connect to other servers using ActivityPub, a decentralized social media networking protocol.

Media coverage includes:

2019

Apr. 10, 2019, Mastodon 2.8 released.

2021

Rochko formed Mastodon gGmbH as a German nonprofit organization. The first annual report for Mastondon says he was still living with his parents, working 14 hours per day, and earning about 2,400 Euros per month from Patreon supporters.

Mar. 29, 2021, Mastodon for Android beta version released.

Nov. 3, 2021, Mastodon iOS, iPad beta version released.

2022

Patreon support increased to around $33,000 per month from over 9,000 Patreon supporters. The support pays for six software developers.

Mar. 30, 2022, Mastodon 3.5 released.

Apr. 21, 2022, official iOS and Android apps were released.

The latest stable Mastodon 4.0.2 release was in November 2022.

In October 2022, when Elon Musk took over Twitter, some users went to Mastodon. There were 230,000 new Mastodon users in the first week of November and one million more by mid-December.

On Dec. 20, 2022, Twitter suspended the join Mastodon account and blocked anyone on Twitter from sharing Mastodon links. Musk said he wanted to promote free speech by buying Twitter.

Rochko said, “This is a stark reminder that centralized platforms can impose arbitrary and unfair limits on what you can and can’t say. The future of social media doesn’t have to belong to a billionaire; it can be in the hands of its users.”

Conclusion

Mastodon has approximately 2.5 million users compared to 300 million on Twitter. Mastodon is an interesting new way to develop a social media platform. The Mastodon interface is not as user-friendly as it could be. The posts are only organized by a timeline, so there is no way to gain much viral traction. It can be quite good for chatting with a close-knit group of friends and family if you set up a server.

There is a long way to go for Mastodon to be anywhere close to a Twitter Killer. Maybe some of the 3,600+ fired Twitter employees can now join the Mastodon open-source software programming effort.

Why Local Journalism Is So Important

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News that is reliable, relevant, and informative is necessary to educate people about issues, policies, and decisions that impact their lives. According to the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, the absence of local journalism is at crisis levels. For many Americans, there simply is no local news outlet for them to rely on for information. For 65 million more, they have just one local news outlet.

The increasing lack of local journalism diminishes the public’s knowledge. People now turn to social media or national mainstream media to get the nationalized version of the news. This trend creates a poorly-informed citizenry, and these systems may manipulate the gullible.

Social Media

The problem with social media is that the main goal is to get users addicted to the systems and not necessarily to publish the facts, improve communication, or cover local interests. Sensational misinformation gets more attention.

Mainstream Media and Corporate Agendas

A review of the Harvard Business School May 2021 report on the mainstream media in the U.S. shows the concentration of ownership. When a national conglomerate owns the local station and the corporation controls the news programming, the company may advance a corporate agenda to impact national decisions with little attention paid to localized information.

The news anchors at all of these stations read the same news stories that come down from the corporate headquarters. See this example of the local news anchors all reading the same story on Sinclair stations. Sinclair is the largest owner of local stations.

Local News Matters

In small towns and rural areas, local journalists are responsible for disseminating news that has meaning for residents. Local news matters, as it may be the only way to access public information needed by community members.

When local journalism functions well, it encourages political, economic, and social participation by those impacted by the decisions made by the municipal, county, and state governments.

Trustworthiness of Local Journalists

Most people place more trust in local journalists compared to national news sources. This trustworthiness may improve if the local journalists are active in the community and considered contributing members.

Many Americans believe powerful individuals and organizations are not held accountable for their actions. Local journalists combat this perception by being transparent about potential conflicts of interest and neutral about issues while presenting the information in their reports.

The Benefits of Local Journalism

A powerful local story may break to a national level and spread awareness about an important issue. Local news celebrates the achievements of a community.

Local journalism supports community needs through activism. Local journalists may be considered heroes by the residents when fighting for the community by taking on corruption.

Local journalism is no longer about printed newspapers. The valuable, informative purpose of local journalism is easy to manifest online. News sharing through social media is effective when focused on a local level as a community news service.

If you lack a local news service, why not set up one as a nonprofit and work with volunteers? If a high school can publish an online newsletter, so can any community.

Conclusion

Creating and supporting a system to publish relevant local news benefits the community. Local journalism allows news coverage to focus on important topics for community members. What is missing? There are fewer instances of local journalism holding local government to account or examples of local news covering local issues to help make some kind of improvement.

How to Balance a Chemical Equation

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A foundational skill in the field of chemistry, balancing chemical equations is essential to understanding chemical reactions. The atoms and molecules of chemicals often recombine into other molecules. Chemical equations show this recombination using the symbols of various periodic elements and their numerical amounts.

For example, the burning of propane to create water and carbon dioxide can be depicted as: C3H8 + O2 H2O + CO2. Representing a transformative chemical change, the arrow symbol in this chemical equation acts very much like the equal sign (=) in the traditional mathematical equation.

Because matter cannot be created or destroyed, chemical equations must contain the same number of atoms on each side. You can use different techniques to balance a simple chemical equation, but a traditional balancing process takes just a few steps.

1. Record the number of atoms for each element

Elements without a subscript exist as a single atom. Otherwise, the subscript indicates the number of atoms for that element. Using the provided chemical equation as your guide, record the number of atoms for each element. First, do this for the left (pre-change) side of the equation. Then, do it for the right (post-change) side of the equation. To balance the equation C3H8 + O2 H2O + CO2, you should list C=3, H=8, and O=2 for the left side and C=3, H=2, and O=7 for the right side. It may be helpful to list this information in two vertical columns so that each element sits beside its counterpart on the other side of the equation.

2. Save the most common elements for last

With your two coordinated columns in place, you are ready to add coefficients to balance your equation. However, you should approach this process strategically. For easier balancing, you will want to save extremely common elements, such as hydrogen and oxygen, for last. Because hydrogen and oxygen are present in so many molecules, you are quite likely to encounter them on both sides of your equation.       

 3. Start with single elements

Check your chemical equation for single elements that have no subscripts. If you find any, this is the best place to start the balancing process. Begin with any single elements that appear on both sides of the equation and then move on to those that appear on one side or the other. In the case of C3H8 + O2 H2O + CO2, you should balance the single carbon atom first.

4. Use coefficients to balance your equation

Because there are three carbon atoms on the left side of the equation C3H8 + O2 H2O + CO2 and there is only a single carbon atom on the right, you must add a coefficient of 3 to the right side in order to balance this element. To record this coefficient, place it in front of the carbon dioxide (CO2) molecule to triple it. Now that you have three carbon dioxide molecules, you not only have a total of 3 carbon atoms on the right side of your equation, but you have increased the total number of oxygen atoms to 7. With your carbon atoms balanced at 3 on both sides of your equation, you are now ready to move on to your hydrogen atoms. Because you can add coefficients but never change molecular subscripts, you must add a coefficient of 4 to your water (H2O) molecule on the right side of your equation. Now you are balanced with 8 hydrogen atoms on both sides. However, you must also add three oxygen atoms to the right side of your equation to make a total of 10. Finally, you must balance the number of oxygen atoms in your equation. This means adding a coefficient of five to the oxygen (O2) on the left side of your equation. Now, every element on both sides of your equation has an equal number of atoms!

How To Find The Best Work From Home Opportunities: 5 Tips

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Working from home is a growing trend, and a lot of people want to jump on the bandwagon. You get to eliminate a daily commute, work in comfort, and hopefully have a little more freedom over your work life.

It’s an enticing prospect, but finding good work-from-home jobs is not always easy. 

The five tips below can help you in your search.

Pay for Help

There are professional resources that vet jobs for you, and some of them specifically cater to working from home.

At the top of the list is FlexJobs. Everybody in the work-from-home industry swears by them because they’re that good. The job listings are vetted so that you know they are real jobs, and they’re organized on the site to help you find them.

You do have to pay a subscription fee while you use the site, but it’s well worth the investment.

Outside of FlexJobs, there are other resources like Indeed. Feel free to use them too, but FlexJobs really is the best place to start (and no, they aren’t sponsoring this content).

Apply Scrutiny

If you aren’t getting your job listings from a professionally vetted source, then you’re going to need to stay on your toes. There are a lot of scams out there. There are even more dead job postings. Perhaps the jobs are filled and no one bothers to take down the post. Who knows the real reason, but the point is that you’ll run into tons of dead ends in your search.

Stay sharp and apply scrutiny. If something seems too good to be true, then you already know that it is. You won’t get rich overnight working from home. But, you might find a real job that pays an industry-standard wage.

Check Government Listings

You can also check job listings with very large companies (like Fortune 500 companies). They will have a constant stream of openings, but with government positions, there’s a consolidated master list. Not all jobs are remote, but you can use the filters built into the job search to save time. There’s even a section dedicated to working from home.

Start Your Own Business

This is a scary prospect, and anyone who says it’s easy or comes without risk is lying. No matter the venture, starting a business is risky and a lot of hard work.

But, if you pull it off, then this option gives you the most freedom and control over your work life, and it usually comes with the highest earnings potential.

Whatever your skill, you can run the business out of your home, be it web design, piano lessons, or anything else.

If you’re risk averse, then start with a side hustle. Try to take on a few local clients and work from home part-time. You can transition into full-time business ownership when you’re ready.

Use Social Media

Job hunting is all about networking, and that’s still true when you want to work from home. Use Facebook, Twitter,  and anything else in your repertoire. Make a post asking your contacts if they know of any job openings. Your friends and family will report back to you with anything they find.

Additionally, many local businesses have social media pages. You can inquire about work opportunities directly. Get on their Facebook pages and Twitter accounts and ask about job openings and working from home.

You can apply these same ideas if you are starting your own business. You can ask friends and family for referrals. You can also solicit businesses via their social media pages and try to land them as clients.