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Monday, January 26, 2009

Setting Up Your Home Office For Success

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By R. Landis

Carefully plan and design your home office workspace to ensure maximum personal productivity. If at all possible, resist the temptation to turn a corner of the living room or your bedroom into your office. Ideally, you'll want a separate room with a door that closes to keep business activities in and family members out. If this is not possible, you'll have to find a means of converting a room with a partition or simply find hours to do the bulk of your work when nobody else is home.

Your workspace needs to include a dedicated phone line, your computer and printer and other technology that you need, a comfortable and roomy work station, plus places to keep your files, other paperwork and any books and magazines.

Since you will want to enjoy your time working, you can place some reminders about your office area, such as a family photograph, you can simply place it on one of your shelves. These items can help you to remember the best things about working from your home. You can keep other areas of your life nearby in order to stay focused on the reasons why you are working so hard. You want to remember that you are doing this for a better lifestyle for your family and yourself.

Some individuals may insist that you eliminate all clutter and keep a clean desk. However, if you require having papers out to be most effective then you should do so. As long as you are efficient and benefit from your home business, there is no set means by which you should work, but your own comfort. Your objective is business success. It that means you will be working out of a rebuilt walk in closet, then let it be. You want to set up your workspace in such a manner that will offer you the most efficiency.

In order to achieve the maximum productivity you want to make sure that your office and workspace is ergonomically designed. Ergonomic expert agree that you can increase your productivity by 20 percent when you have a good design. Read a few books that explain ergonomics, such as the placement of your keyboard and monitor as well as lighting, chair size, body and sitting position. You can create a productive working environment by using the proper ergonomic office layout and design.

The key to staying organized is not about which type of filing system you have, but about managing your business, about having systems in place to do things. Therefore, you want to establish a routine by which you can accomplish as much as possible in a given workday. Small things such as creating a to-do list at the end of each business day will keep you efficient. Creating a single calendar to work from will also ensure that you complete jobs on schedule. Incorporating family and personal activities into your work calendar is also critical.

Carefully planning out-of-office client meetings in blocks, such as an entire morning, afternoon or day, may reduce the travel time if the clients are in one area. However, taking a large block of time to drive all over the place may leave you unavailable to other customers for too long. Therefore, you might schedule two short trips out of the office to two specific areas in which to meet clients.

Your to-do list should include both low-priority and high-priority items. Do not forget to invest some time in returning telephone calls and answering emails. You will also need to become familiar with the schedules of vendors or other individuals with whom you interact with regularly. Make a note if your vendor is only available in the mornings. You may also learn how to integrate your schedule with others when it is necessary while allowing for the differences in time zones.

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