Home office expert's guide to working from home/home office tips
Working from a home office never felt so cool
Back when I was in the corporate world as an event planner, I worked for a boss who was a perfectionist. She revised proposals until they were perfect and almost missed a few deadlines.
On the day of events, she would drive the set-up crews crazy. Everything was set up according to our plans, but she still didn’t think the set-up was perfect. She focused on the small details of each event and forgot about the parts of the event that really mattered.
Yesterday I watched a new show on the Food Network called “24 hour Restaurant Battle.” (Watching the Food Network doesn’t make me a good cook, but it inspires me to be a good cook.) On the show, two teams have 24 hours to create and open a restaurant. The winning team earns $10,000.
In the episode I watched, the chefs on opposing teams were equally talented. The difference was that one chef was a perfectionist. The other had his eye on the end result: to serve good food in a timely manner. The perfectionist spent more time on the presentation of the food — her customers wouldn’t have noticed if the lettuce wasn’t centered on the plate — and less time watching the clock. The perfectionist lost the competition.
When you focus on making sure the slightest tasks turns out perfectly, you risk missing deadlines, annoying your clients and getting in your own way of success. Your business can’t move forward when your need for perfection turns into an anchor that drags your business down.
The next time you can’t let something go because it’s not perfect, take the pressure off yourself and keep your eye on the big picture.
Over the years, I’ve seen home offices that were disaster areas and others that needed only a bit of fine-tuning. What the owners of these home offices had in common was that they were fighting their natural working styles. Everyone works differently and falls into one of five working styles, depending upon the time of day and the activity.
Everyone works and organizes differently.
Bouncing Ball — bounces from project to project, without completing any of them. They want to accomplish everything, yet have trouble focusing on one thing at a time. (I know because I tend to be a Bouncing Ball at times.) Use some type of to-do list (paper-based or electronic) to keep you on track and focused.
Nit Picky (or perfectionist) — appears organized on the surface, yet their quest for perfection keeps them from being organized. One of the ways to avoid being a Nit Picky is to have realistic standards and attainable goals, and know that you can’t do everything perfectly.
Teeter Totter — has trouble making decisions because they fear that any decision they make may be the wrong one. When making decisions, build in contingency plans. When you start a project, make decisions and follow through. If things aren’t going as planned, change direction and then move forward.
Ima Mess — keeps things “just in case” or because they “may need it someday.” The problem is that when they need it, they can’t find it. If you’re keeping something that isn’t serving a specific purpose, recycle it or donate it. Weed through your files and get rid of anything that you know you’ll never refer to again. Add drawer dividers within drawers you use often, to make it easy to see and find what you need.
Lookout — follows the out-of-sight, out-of-mind philosophy and fears putting anything away. Files are piled on the desk, office supplies are stored on open shelves and magazines are stacked on the floor as a reminder to read them. Keep things in sight but still organized by using desktop file holders, colorful document boxes to hold supplies on shelves, and stacking bins or baskets to hold magazines.
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