Work-at-home-organized

Today is a new day, the beginning of working at home in an organized way. After moving three states away from my native hometown the office was still in disarray, profits were down. Now was the time to clear the desk, tidy and straighten the office up and pull the calendar from the drawer.

If you are like me and work at home it is a far stretch from how we worked at the office. When you landed the job of your dreams wasn’t the desk already semi-setup? If you think back, weren’t the filing cabinets arranged in an organized manner within the office? Why do you suppose the office manager had it set up that way? Productivity, that’s why.

So, what makes us think we can work at home with a messy desk? How clearly can we focus if files are stacked all over the floor where the kids and puppy can knock them over? Does your peripheral view take all of this into your brain? Of course, it does and it made mine twitchy!

This week I decided to make a major shift in how I work at home. Taking time out of the day I straightened and organized the papers, office supplies, and phones on my desk. Arranging the files and storage containers in the office in a neat way made the room seem bigger, less cluttered. Now, it was time to get to the grand-daddy of tasks, to plan out each day, logging the most important tasks on the calendar.

Thinking back to my banking days, I realized that the first task of the day (after coffee of course) was to look over what files had been placed in my inbox the night before. Then I prioritized them and wrote out notes on the calendar which file needed to be worked on first, second, third, and so on. If at the end of the day all tasks on the calendar weren’t complete, those tasks were transferred to the next working day on the calendar to receive top priority in processing.

So, today is a new day. Using the knowledge and experience of years in the workplace office a new procedure for working at home has been implemented. Each Monday morning, after that cup of coffee, will be spent logging priority tasks for each work-at-home business and its priority tasks on the weekly calendar. After all, isn’t our home-based business MORE important than our previous job outside of the home? To enable our brain to focus and be more productive I challenge you to join me in getting organized and work at home from a scheduled calendar, too.

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