Getting Organized to Work at Home

When I first started working from home the hardest things for me to do was stay on task, get organized and develop a routine. These are the top three things that can keep you from succeeding.

Because we are designers we have a tendency to simply want to start designing. That is what many of us were born to do. It's in our blood. If you are anything like me, once I get into designing something I look up and find that hours have passed by, and I did not make any of those business contacts I was suppose to accomplish that day. Oops!

How do you avoid this? Develop a routine. My work day goes something like this:

The very first thing that I do while sipping my morning coffee is check and answer my email. Then I do go over my notes from the previous day to see who I need to call back. I make all the necessary calls, and then check back to my notes to see if I have any meetings.

I personally like to get all of the business activities out of the way in the morning. That way when I get lost in my passion, I don’t have to worry about forgetting to call someone back or answer an email or worse yet ... forget a meeting.

I also let the answering machine pick up the calls, so I can stay on task, and then check the machine periodically.

I have even set a lunch time, 12:00pm-1:00pm. I eat and watch “Judging Amy” during this break. After lunch I check the answering machine, email and answer as needed. I keep a notebook with things that need to be done each day, and check them off as they are done.

Before I close up shop, I make sure all of the filing is done and everything is in it’s place. To me there is nothing more irritating than a messy office in the morning.

This may not work for you. But the main things that I found works which work best for me is to stay organized, focused and stick with my routine.

// posted by BasicAnn on 6/22/2005 01:18:00 PM / Permanent Link