Tips on making a Home Office Schedule
August 10, 2007 | Author: Eve Lester | Filed under: Time Management
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Last week I wrote about Home Office Distractions, listing the different distractions you may face working from home, along with a few tips on how to overcome them. This week, I am sharing the methods I use to make a routine that helps avoid some of the common distractions, therefore making me more productive.
Scheduling your day is just as important in home business as any other business. I usually block out slots of time for each project I work on. For instance, I aim to check and reply to all email and comments from 8am to 9am. While that doesn’t always work, there are times where I need more than an hour, or even less, depending on the day, I just move to my next task and work on that. I use an egg timer to help remind me that an hour has gone by. This way if I started out checking my mail, and end up shopping for skin care products the timer goes off and reminds me to get back to work! (It has happened! LOL) For more info on my Egg Time strategy, read this article.
- Calendar - I keep two calendars next to me, one is a large paper desk one, and the other is a dry erase board with the blank Calendar. These come in handy for jotting down dates, ad expirations, etc. I first put the item on the dry erase board, if it has the potential to be changed, once I am sure of the date, I put it on the desk calendar. This is especially handy for paid sponsors in the sidebar, if they pay for a month or even 6 months, I flip the desk calendar to the day it expires and mark it down. That way, in 6 months I am reminded to follow up to renew.
- Goal Papers -Open up a word program, or get a pen and paper, now, make a list of your goals, like how much money you want to make in six months, how many visitors do you want to have in 6 months, etc. I posted more about goal setting here. Once you have the list, print it out (or tear it out of the notebook) and hang it near your desk. This helps in multiple ways, one is to help remind you why you are doing what your doing on those bad days where it seems everything is going wrong. Try to analyze yourself each day, and make sure you do atleast ONE thing towards your goals.
- A To-Do List - I am a to-do list addict, at any given moment I usually have about 3 lists going; a blogging list, a cleaning list, a design list, etc. I try to get everything on the list done during the day, but it hardly happens. At the end of the day, I sit down with my lists and update them for the next day, adding and removing some as I go. I keep my lists in a few different places, for instance, my ‘design to-do list’ holds varios projects I need to complete, and all have matching emails, I keep those in a folder called design-to-do in my email client (Thunderbird), my general to do list is on a little gadget on my Windows Vista Sidebar, this hold the master list, such as cleaning, emails, and projects that pop up. I also keep some in a notebook. It is also nice to have a to-do list because you mark off what you have done, and at the end of the day, you feel more accomplished. There have been days where I felt like I didn’t accomplish anything, then I update my to-do list and I got a TON done, I just didn’t realize it because there were so many ‘little’ tasks.
- Points System - A points system can be applied to anything, from cleaning, blogging, marketing, etc. I made an excel sheet to show as an example, the one I made is for managing blogs (as many as you need managed on one sheet.) You can read more about it and download the excel sheet free at this article. If you look at that sheet, you can see what needs to be changed to manage another area. For instance, in cleaning, you can make sweeping worth 10 points, for toilet cleaning it is 20 points, or whatever you see fit. Then aim for a certain number of points each day, this way, one day you clean the bathrooms the next you sweep and mop. Same with other items that need managed- working out, switch it up some; marketing tasks, etc.
No matter what tools you use, all paper, all electronic, or even just in your head, try to com up with a routine that will become habit at some point. This will make you much more productive in the end.
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11 people have left comments
Very cool tips, thanks a lot!
I’ll try that point system..!
Thanks! I am glad you enjoyed it!
That is some great tips. I work at home a lot and I find that you can easily get distracted. My wife my kids. you name it. but just because you work at home does not mean that what your doing is less important just because your not in an office. I’ll try some of your tips.
hi,
Very interesting i think we can work out this. As you suggest we can perfectly Schedule our work at home you mean it.Thanks for your great idea!
I work from home running four companies! Between my dog, the house phone, my cell phone and people knocking at my door it is amazing i get anything done! I have found that using a Virtual Office has helped tremendously. I use a company by the name of The Smarter Office in Orlando Florida. Because my dog rips up my mail as soon as it is delivered it is important to have my business mail going elsewhere. I also have a professional receptionist answering my calls and meeting rooms available when i need them–which i can book online. Sometimes I confess i use the meeting rooms just to work out of the house on an afternoon!
Great! And Cathrine, WOW, I would do the same thing!
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This is a good tips that can help me to manage my job and time better. Thanks
I think that the whole Idea of working at home is to be free. So first I sleep tell 11 am. I have a plan of each week. what i have to ” best want to ” do. i must do it with out beeing limited to time.
Very useful information. These tips are extremly valuable thank you.
very nice thanks for it