It has been over 6 months now and many of us have been doing some type of business meetings via a video call, it may be Zoom, Skype, Google Meet Ups, etc. Well now that school is back in session many of us can add our kids’ video meetings to our list of meetings that we need to be aware of.

It is always an interesting look into someone’s home (celebrities or not) and early on I bet many of us just were not too terribly concerned about what it looked like, we were all in the learning phase and didn’t think we would be in this situation for so long. But there is still no end in sight and it is time to step up our games.

If you are looking for some inspiration as to what your room should look like there is a twitter account called ‘RateMySkypeRoom’ for you to check out.

“It was really just meant to be lighthearted quarantine content,”

So take a look at your room, what do you see? Is it a mess like this?

And if so how much of that shows up in your background? Set up your laptop or phone where you are planning your meeting and take a test shot to see what you need to organize, and focus on what is visable in that screen shot, that is the area that you want to start working on.

Clutter that is down low probably is not a high priority if you are looking to make a quick and easy clean up. As you can see mine is a work in progress, and actually this is the part of it gets worse before it gets better. Prior to this the ironing board wasn’t part of my previous background but it got moved in the process. It will need to move again, but this was part of a massive overhaul of space, we moved a huge desk to the basement, moved a smaller desk up to the office (I now have an office mate when he is doing remote learning), and established my desk at a proper height for me.

I am concentrating on two areas for good zoom backgrounds; one for my meetings and one for child 1’s meetings. My second child's zoom location was decluttered over the summer when I anticipated both children in the same location. As I have been working to make these areas organized and useful I have really gained a new appreciate for the phrase ‘Outer Order Inner Calm’, so while my immediate focus is what is in the background, I plan on continuing to delcutter and organize what cannot be seen in the background.

I am fairly lucky that there is not too much in my background that I need to focus on, however the rest of the room as you saw is pretty cluttered, the Office has been a dumping ground and has been the cemetary for abandonded projects.

Below are some tips that can help you with your presentation.

• Light...not directly behind or overhead
• Set up a workstation
• Elevate your camera
• Unclutter your background

I have already set up my workstation and elevated my camera. Now I need to work on decluttering my background and lighting. I did take that picture around 1:30 in the afternoon and as you can see the lighting isn’t that great, so I have work to do on that front. Over the weekend I made serious progress with decluttering and organizing and am pretty comfortable with the results.

I have heard that many people like the Ring light, people in my networking group have recommended as have Podcasters that I listen to, I am holding off at this time because I found a light that can help out as a temporary meausre.

Our current situation is forcing me to take on something that has been on my 'to do list' for far to long, and moving it to the top of the list, and that is I need to get an electrician in to do some work for us, not only the office lighting but additional items as well. I am learning that it is hard to find an electrician, I had one that was supposed to call to schedule an estimate and never did. I did have someone come out on Monday and he anticipated having the estimate to us sometime today, but it has been a struggle, and I am hoping to get on someone's schedule sooner rather than later.

If you want to see the progress I have made, I have additional progress pictures on my Facebook page.

How are you coping with online meetings for yourself and possibly your children as well? Do you have any helpful hints to share? Any funny stories? Let me know on my Facebook page.

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