I have been successfully working from home for over 20 years. During that time, I had to quickly learn how to multi-task and manage my time. A common question I am often asked is… “Shelly, how do you find the time to work on your home business and still get your household chores done?”

What I have found is if I stick to a routine and a schedule, I can get my business work, household cleaning chores and cooking done. What has worked for me, might not work for you…but here is how I accomplish my tasks.

Morning Routine – When I get up in the morning, I make and feed my family breakfast and get them ready for school and work. Once they are out the door, I turn on my computer and head to the shower. After I get myself cleaned up for the day, I start a load of wash and unload/load my dishwasher.

I then sit down to have my breakfast while reading and responding to email inquiries. Once that task is completed, I will unload my wash and place it into the dryer…if necessary, start another wash load.

I will spend the next hour working on my business tasks. After one hour, I will do some cleaning up around the house and spend an hour completing those tasks.

Lunchtime/Afternoon Routine – I will prepare lunch and feed my family or myself, and clean up the lunch dishes. I then schedule in another 90 minutes of working time. Once that time is up, I will do another hour of household tasks before doing another 60 to 90 minutes of business tasks.

Evening Routine – I will start dinner and while dinner is cooking, do any household tasks that I didn’t get completed during the day. I will then serve dinner to my family and clean up the dinner dishes. I schedule in 2 hours of family time (homework help, spending time with spouse, etc.)

Night Time Routine – Once I have the children in bed and my spouse is relaxing for the evening, I will spend another 30 to 40 minutes finishing up any business tasks for the day.

As you can see, I have a routine.

You need to sit down and come up with a business game plan and set it into action. Try to stick to your plan as much as possible. Once you have a routine in place, you will find that you can take care of your business, your household and yes…your family.

Shelly Hill has been successfully working from home in Direct Sales since 1989 and is a Manager with Tupperware. Shelly believes that having a daily working and home life routine is essential for business success. You can visit Shelly online at http://www.workathomebusinessoptions.com for free business tips and information or at http://my.tupperware.com/Ravish30

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Here are some quick and easy tips:

#1 – Keep the air flowing. One thing you don’t want is stale air in your creative space. Regularly open windows at either end of your office space to allow a clear path of air to flow through at all times. It’s important to keep the air flowing even during the winter months. You don’t have to open your windows very much to get a good flow of air – a little will do.

#2 – Keep the office green. Plants do a lot more than look attractive. Having plants in your office space will help reduce the static energy in the air. This is energy that comes off computers, telephones and other electrical outlets. Green leafy plants will help reduce the amount of toxins in the air and help you breath easier.

Stay away from spiky or thorny plants as this is said to stop the positive energy flow in the Feng Shui of your space.

#3 – Keep things natural. The more natural materials you can use in your office space the better. Opt for natural wood, stone and paints where possible. The key is to reduce as many toxins as possible in your office. Go for simple renewably sourced products. When decorating, opt for a “greener” eco-friendly paint that doesn’t release toxins into the air.

#4 – De-clutter often. The less cluttered your environment, the better the overall energy flow. Keep your office space tidy and neat. If you don’t need something, find a good home for it. A clutter-free office space may also help you think clearer and more creatively.

#5 – Add feel-good items. Feel-good items like favorite sculptures, art and wind chimes will all contribute to the positive mood of your space. Add these sparingly without cluttering your space for a feel-good vibe.

#6 – Balance your color scheme. Colors can set a mood instantly. Blues, greens and yellows (yellow in moderation) can create a creative, airy, light mood – perfect for offices. Reds and oranges are fiery and may be a little too bright for most office spaces. Having said that, if you’re in a very dynamic, creative type business this may just be the color scheme for you.

Take a little time to look into colors to see which make you feel good and will create the mood you’re after.

Creating a healthy office space doesn’t have to be difficult. It’s simply about creating a more relaxing, happy, energetic space. When you walk into your office and instantly feel good you know you’ve achieved just that.

Are you a small business owner who’s trying desperately to stay on top of all your tasks? Like many people, you probably thought that once you started your own business, you would enjoy less time at work. You probably never imagined that after a few months, you would have more work than you could handle. Well, if you’re like most other small business owners, you wear many hats and must be great at what you do, even the less appealing tasks. So now you must decide how to best organize your business to maximize your efficiency so you can go back to enjoying having a life instead of working all the time.

It goes without saying that in order to stay on top of all the projects that are coming in to keep your customers happy, it’s wise to start a system that works for you to keep it all organized. If you are a post-it note person, you probably prefer to write everything down, so it’s best for you to get an agenda to write things down in. Also, do your best to keep your office neat and paperwork filed into clearly labeled folders. If you are comfortable with using a computer, there are some terrific tools like Microsoft Outlook you can use to track tasks, set calendar and meeting reminders and keep notes for timely follow-up. The key is finding something you are comfortable with and that you will use consistently to keep important things organized. Personally, I use a small agenda that I keep with me at all times to jot notes in, then an online calendar and spreadsheet for all my projects so that I know what’s going on at a glance from anywhere I happen to be.

Finding your system is key to organizing and using your time wisely. This helps you get things done more efficiently and opens up more time for the things you’d rather be doing.

Once you have gotten rid of all the garbage and unnecessary files on your computer, you are now ready to actually start organizing them into a system that works for you. Not everyone is going to have the same system, but there are some basic principles that should be followed when organizing computer files.

Make the necessary folders for your documents, pictures, and other files. Making folders on your computer makes it a lot easier to quickly find what you are needing on your computer. If you want to check what your earnings looked like last quarter for your home business, you would go to folder named “ Earnings.” When naming your folders, be sure to keep them simple and not complicated as they should be short and concise titles.

When placing your documents and files into your folders, be sure that the names of them specific and you can tell what they are from the name. Don’t have files named 123temp.doc even though that may be the file name when you downloaded the file. Instead rename files so that at a quick glance you can tell what they are. If you have a spreadsheet for a client’s invoices, a good title would be “Client’s Name Invoices Year.” This specifically tells you what the file is but yet it is short and to the point.

Once you have organized your computer files, be sure to keep up with the organization. This means if you make or download any new files, be sure that it is saved in the appropriate place. If you don’t have an appropriate folder set up yet, be sure to set one up for it. This will save you a lot of stress and time when it comes time to find any files or documents on your computer.

Organizing your computer files helps keep lost documents and files to a minimum. This is especially important when you own you own business or you are working on a work computer in which you need readily available access to your files.

The first step in organizing your computer files is to clean up the whole computer. The more files that you have on your computer the more you have to deal with. Make it easier on yourself and before you try organizing you computer, weed through the garbage.

Set aside a certain amount of time to get this project done, as you don’t want to have to stop in the middle of it and lose your place and have to start all over again. It’s easier getting it done all in one sitting. The first place you can start cleaning up is your desktop. For an organized look make sure you are not saving random documents to your desktop. If anything is saved to your desktop it should be a program or a folder. Not individual documents. Delete any icons that you don’t use or you don’t use on a regular basis to clear up space on your desktop.

Next, go through each one of your drive locations on your computer to look at all the files. Any files or documents that you don’t need she be sent to the garbage bin on the computer. After you have gotten rid of any unnecessary files on your computer, be sure to empty your garbage bin or recycle bin (depending on your computer.)

You are now ready to start actually organizing your files.

So I knew as soon as I got more than one client I needed to be organized. There was no goofing around with people’s projects, losing info in an email abys, or missing important project dates. Client Spot filled that need perfectly for me.

I did try out a few other companies and they were good, in fact many of them were very similiar. But the one thing I didn’t like was those other programs required me to also keep track of my hours on some other program. Client Spot has everything for my clients in the one program. When I’m ready to work on a task, I hit the timer and the task I am working on. When I’m done with that task, I click done and it adds that time to the task and project. Now all my hours are together with the project information.

Oh and that opening your planner thing is taken care of as well. I can set it up to notify me of projects coming due. Not that I need it now since I’m in the program everyday to work on projects, but if there is something I’m worried about forgetting I can set up an email reminder.

Client Spot is great for those just starting their service business as well. I know that money is always tight when you are starting out, but you still need to get everything done correctly in order to make more money. Many do not have the extra money to pay for a program. Client Spot is free to start an account. You can have up to 3 projects to work on in the free account and you still have access to the wonderful features. No CC is needed to set up the account, just open it and start organizing your projects right away. Then like me, you will be upgrading your account within that first month because you are organized enough to take on more clients.

Are you focused on your business? This alone can throw your business into high gear or create a standstill. It can be easy to lose focus when you work at home, as there will always be other things competing for your attention. It is okay to let the laundry wait for a few hours while you work on your business. Your laundry can’t pay your bills, but those few hours you put into your business could reap you many financial rewards.

Not only is focusing on business tasks important, but it is important to be focused within your business. It is easy to get sidetracked with new business ventures and other offers. It can be hard to spread your time and energy over too many projects. It is easier to manage a select few projects that are tightly woven within your target market. Take an inventory of all of your sites and see where you may be leaking energy.

Are you being productive? At the end of the day, do you ever feel like you worked all day but accomplished nothing? Take a look at the tasks you are working on, and whether they are actually important to your success. If you find yourself getting sidetracked by surfing the web, chatting in forums, or reading blogs, try to schedule time for those activities after your “real work” is done.

On the other hand, if you feel your time is being sucked away by answering email, updating your website, or collecting research for an upcoming information product you are working on, try outsourcing those tasks to a virtual assistant. This will help you free up some time to work on business tasks that need more attention.

Are you reaching your goals? If you find that you are constantly missing your goal deadlines, you may want to take the time to revamp your goals. Create an action plan that will be easy to follow and help you get to your end result.

Would I hire myself? This is a tough question to ask yourself, but it is very important. It may sound silly, but perhaps you could write out a job description and give yourself an interview. Are you the type of employee you would want to hire?

If you answered “no” to the above question, take some time to write out the areas within yourself that you would like to improve. This can be a hard exercise to complete, but once you have analyzed yourself, you’ll be on your way to becoming a better business owner and having a better business.

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