I’ve been talking a lot about goals over the past few weeks. With the New Year upon us, we are all thinking of ways to better ourselves over the coming year. One of my major underlying goals is just to be more productive, to work smarter as well as harder and to basically just get more done in the day. That’s easier said that done for most of us, but throw two children under two and a half into the mix and it can seem next to impossible to imagine that ever becoming a reality. But being a busy mum is also what drives me and motivates me to achieve more and better myself. So that is what I have been trying to do! I strongly believe in not waiting for the New Year to action my goals and so with that in mind I have been finding ways to be more productive throughout the day.
I am essentially a stay at home mum, neither of my kids go to any sort of childcare and so my ‘working hours’ are basically whenever they are asleep. And if you know much about my kids, you’ll know that they aren’t really asleep very much or very often! However, I often have emails to reply to throughout the day and I was finding it difficult to ever get a chance to sit down at the computer with the kids on the loose. Equally I don’t really like doing a huge amount of admin from my phone. This is where the Acer Chromebook R11 came in, as my knight in shining armour. AO were kind enough to send me the Chromebook for the purposes of this review, and it honestly couldn’t have come at a better time. So how have I been getting on with the product?
Lightweight & 360° Rotating Screen
I was impressed with the product from the moment I opened the box! At 29.5cm it is smaller than the average laptop and is also so thin and light, making it easy to move around the house with me, dependent on where the kids are playing at the time. It turns on in a matter of seconds so I can quickly load up my emails and send a response before my toddler even has the chance to realise what I am doing and try to interfere. It also has an excellent battery life so I don’t need to worry about having it plugged in all the time.
One of my favourite features of the Chromebook is the 360° rotation that means you can quite literally fold it in half and use it like a tablet. You can also have it an any angle, so you can stand it up whichever way is convenient for you at the time. The touch screen is HD and also has IPS technology that means you will always see a clear image on the screen regardless of the angle at which you are viewing it. The display on the screen rotates to accommodate whichever way you need it too. Essentially the Chromebook gives you the ease of a tablet but also has the benefits of a traditional laptop – it sounds cliche but it truly is the best of both worlds and has made a huge difference to the way I can work from home.
Connectivity & Apps
Another feature that makes it perfect for working from home for me, is that is has Bluetooth which is perfect as it means it is easily compatible with my printer. I’m making a huge effort to be more organised with keeping physical records of contracts and invoices and so the easier I can get everything printed off, the better!
The Chromebook works by downloading Apps which so far has been ideal for me and I really like how organised the screen looks. You can download Apps for everything you could need from Excel for managing my finances – to Spotify, which I love to have on in the background while I work. I store all of my files straight onto Google Drive and then they are accessible from all of my other devices as well.
This Chromebook has seriously become my blogging bestie and has absolutely revolutionised the way that I can work from home. I don’t have to wait until the kids are tucked up in bed to boot up the computer, now I can quickly fire off emails throughout the day and I’m just getting so much more done as a result.
AO have a huge range of on their site so whatever your computing needs it’s always worth having a look there first!