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Just Published: Organize Your Home Office for Success

October 19, 2011 By 9 Comments

Today I’m excited to announce that after spending way too much time at Starbucks, on planes, and locked in my home office working on Organize Your Home Office for Success, the new and improved 4th edition is now available.

This is the ideal e-book (it’s also available in paperback) for entrepreneurs, home-based corporate employees, telecommuters, and stay-at-home moms and dads who need a space to manage a business or run a busy household.

How it all started

Eighteen years ago, I wrote the first edition of this book because I started getting two types of phone calls: one from business owners who wanted individual home office consultations, and the other from people who wanted suggestions for books they could use to organize their home offices on their own.

When I looked for a home office book to recommend, I couldn’t find one. It didn’t exist. There were plenty of home organizing books, but nothing that focused specifically on home offices and the challenges of working from home. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Balancing home/office Life, Books by Lisa, Home office organizing, Home office setup, Home office technology, Time mgmt./Productivity, Working at home, Working with clients Tagged With:

To Do or Not To Do…It’s All in the List

October 4, 2011 By 10 Comments

A good friend of mine used to use a paper-based planner to write her to-do lists.

As her business grew, she quit using her planner and switched to sticky notes that she plastered all over her monitor. Her system broke down when she started covering older notes with newer ones. She tried to improve her sticky note system by using different colored notes, but that didn’t help.

Now, instead of using her new smartphone to record tasks, she writes her top to-do’s on her hand. She admits that her “organic” way of tracking tasks is a little unreliable, especially by the middle of the day when she’s washed her hands a few times, but she’s out of ideas.

Whether you’re like my friend and you’ve exhausted all of your options, or you’ve used the same planning system for years, take a close look at how you’re planning your days. There are a few ways you can make your system more effective. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Balancing home/office Life, Home office organizing, Time mgmt./Productivity, Working at home Tagged With: ,

4 Ways to Get Your Reading Under Control

September 26, 2011 By 8 Comments

If you had a few extra hours every day, how would you spend them? Considering that I’m a closet bookworm, I’d probably spend part of them reading.

For most of us, taking time to read seems more like a luxury than a necessity, but keeping up with the latest in your industry and knowing what your competition is doing, is an important factor in moving your business forward.

While you can’t add more hours to your day, there are a few ways to make a dent in your reading pile.

1. Sort through your books

As you look through your books, give away the ones you’ve had for years and will never look at again. You could make a few extra dollars by selling your books to bookstores that sell used books. In most cases, any books they don’t buy, they’ll donate to charity. An interesting online option, BookMooch, is a point-based bartering system. You type in the books you want to give away, [Read more...]

Filed Under: Balancing home/office Life, Home office organizing, Time mgmt./Productivity, Working at home Tagged With: ,

How to Save Time and Money When Designing Your Home Office

September 8, 2011 By 12 Comments

Over the years, I’ve seen good home office design plans and I’ve seen others that had disaster written all over them. Laying out your home office is easier when you take the time to plan out your space and figure out how big your furniture can (and should) be.

  • Start by measuring your home office space (including alcoves, windows, doorways and closets).
  • Do a rough sketch of your home office and plug in all the measurements. Your sketch doesn’t have to be pretty, just accurate.
  • Using graph paper, redraw your sketch to scale (one square equals one foot). Or transfer your sketch to a computer-aided design program (CAD). I use CAD instead of drawing plans by hand because it’s easier to create several layouts for my clients. But unless you’ll be creating plans often, don’t invest in a CAD program. It can be [Read more...]
Filed Under: Home office design, Home office organizing, Working at home Tagged With: ,

5 Ways to Fix Your Files

September 6, 2011 By 8 Comments


Have you ever noticed that filing a piece of paper is easy, but finding it later is a bit more challenging? If so, you’re not alone. Several of my clients tell me that they have no trouble tossing papers into files, but waste time trying to find the piece of paper again when they need it.

Does that sound familiar?

There’s always the option of having a completely paperless home office, but that may take time considering old habits are hard to break. Until you’re ready to go paperless, consider these common filing mistakes along with a few simple solutions:

Forgetting where you’ve filed something

Give your files names that you’ll remember by using word association. Whatever word will help you find a piece of paper when you need it is what you should name a file. Considering that you’re probably the only one [Read more...]

Filed Under: Home office organizing, Home office setup, Time mgmt./Productivity, Working at home Tagged With: ,

Time to Get Off Your “Buts”

September 1, 2011 By

For the past few weeks, I’ve put off finishing a seminar that’s scheduled for next month. I know the material, and I know what I want to say, but putting the information into a PowerPoint hasn’t been at the top of my to-do list.

A few days ago, I realized that enough was enough. I was tired of thinking about the presentation first thing each morning and last thing before I went to bed, so I set aside the entire afternoon to finalize it.

While I had to answer some important e-mails and return a few calls in the morning, I was proud of myself for staying focused and finishing my presentation by dinnertime.

Getting started on a task or a big project is difficult, especially when you really don’t want to handle it. It’s easier to make excuses and avoid taking the first step.

If you find yourself procrastinating on an important project, use one of these five methods to help you get started.

I have the privilege of being a contributor for Success…Your Way. To read the rest of this blog post, please click here.

Filed Under: Balancing home/office Life, Home office organizing, Time mgmt./Productivity Tagged With: , ,

The Right Place for a Home Office Isn’t Always Obvious

August 31, 2011 By 12 Comments

I’ve worked with home-based business owners for years, who had little less than the corner of a room for a home office. On the opposite end was a client who couldn’t find space for a home office within her 6,000 SF home (really).

If you think you don’t have room for a home office, think again. Start by evaluating the various rooms in your home. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Balancing home/office Life, Home office design, Home office organizing, Working at home Tagged With:

Change Your Home Office With the FREEDOM Plan

August 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Most of us who are self-employed agree that we’re unemployable. How could we ever take orders from a boss again, after we’ve enjoyed the freedom of being our own boss?

Whether you free yourself from the corporate world by choice, or by your (former) employer’s choice, you need to figure out the best place to set up a home office. The F-R-E-E-D-O-M plan (as in freedom from the corporate world) will get you started on the right track.

F=Find a good place for your home office

My philosophy is that no matter what size home you have, there’s always room for a home office. Try to avoid setting up a home office in your kitchen, because it tends to be a high-traffic area. Your bedroom is also a bad choice since it should be a place to relax and get away from your business.

Instead, find a place that’s not in a high traffic area, but not too isolated. A dining room or a living room is a good option for a home office, especially if it is rarely used.

I have the privilege of being a contributor for Success…Your Way. To read the rest of this blog post, please click here.

Filed Under: Home office organizing, Home office setup, Time mgmt./Productivity, Working at home Tagged With: , ,

All Dressed Up: Vintage Style

August 1, 2011 By 2 Comments

In this corner is Heather Anderson’s vintage home office that proves that with a little creativity, recycled materials and an eye for antiques, you can create a home office that’s a bit whimsical, functional, and, best of all, inexpensive.

With four kids at home, five years and younger, Heather set up her home office in the corner of her large dining room. She felt that it was “necessary to be near all the action.” Anyone with small children can relate.

Her 6 1/2′ x 2′ desk is made from a base she rescued from her kitchen. On the base is an antique door with a piece of glass on top to give her a smooth work surface. She cut out the drawers in the base to make room for her CPU and printer.

Above her desk is a hutch made out of 1’ x 8’ boards, with cubbies that hold her office supplies and products. She painted the hutch in a distressed gray after her facebook friends helped her decide which color to use. Next to her desk is a dresser to store more supplies.

In addition to using a black lunchbox to hide ugly cords — she cut a hole in each side— she uses a jar to hold business cards and has binders decorated with brown paper bags and antique lace.

As someone who loves to share her handmade creations and ideas, this home office reflects her personality, her creative talent and her ability to save money.  The only cost for the entire project was the boards for her hutch.

Filed Under: Balancing home/office Life, Home office design, Home office organizing, Home office setup Tagged With: , , , ,

Time-Wasters You Need to Avoid

July 18, 2011 By 4 Comments

Ask any mompreneur whether we could use more hours in the day and you’d be hard-pressed to find any of us who would say no. There always seem to be more tasks to do than time to do them.

Whether you realize it or not, your day is full of time-stealers. Checking e-mail one too many times and taking calls from chatty friends are clear time-wasters and ones you can avoid. But what about the other time-wasters that aren’t so obvious and can take minutes, even hours out of your day?

Before you can eliminate these time-stealers, it’s important to identify them.

I have the privilege of guest posting at an awesome website called The Work at Home Woman. Read the rest of the post above by clicking here.

Filed Under: Balancing home/office Life, Home office organizing, Time mgmt./Productivity, Working at home Tagged With: , ,
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