When it comes to running a smooth home based small business office, the main key will always be in organization. Odds are good that if you run a home based business, you have a good idea about the services you provide and how to sell those services (or products) to the public. You may sell product online, you may own a business doing cremations and life celebrations in London, Ontario as an example, but bottom line you have the product end of your business down pat.
The problem with running a home-based business is that often, it's not the company concept itself that runs into trouble. Instead, it is all the little details that go into running a successful business. The devil is always in the details, but you can avoid business damnation simply by committing to organizing your organization. That strategy starts with your office; let's see what it looks like.
Space organization
First, you have to make sure that your home office is well organized in terms of space. There should be a spot you use as your workspace, usually featuring your computer as the centrepiece. You'll need a desk with several shelves, bookcases, and so on. Most importantly, you don't want your home office located in a high traffic area of the home, which may lead to distractions as you try to complete office tasks. You don't have to locate yourself in the same room as the laundry, but somewhere out of the way is essential.
Stationery organization
Another important organizational aspect as far as your home based business office goes is in the area of stationery. It can be really hard to believe just how much paper work a business accumulates over the course of a month, let alone over a full year. Without keeping everything neatly filed, you will stand to lose a lot of valuable time and money when year-end duties call.
Make sure that you have an effective filing system for all that paperwork that you accumulate. You will probably want to subdivide as much as possible when it comes to paper work; have a separate cabinet for your invoices, a separate slot for keeping receipts, and so on. Need quick access to that business card you were given by a lawyer as you marketed your skills on that cruise? If you don't have an effective filing system, you might never find it again. And that could cost your business thousands of dollars!
In today's high tech world, stationery filing is not all about paper. Many businesses have computer disks and other types of records that need to be specially stored. Find a good, small case you can keep the video made for your marketing campaign last year, along with other types of digital storage. You'll want to know where to look when it comes time to access it again.
Personal Organization
Finally, one of the main pitfalls of the home business owner is the chance of distraction that comes about as you attempt to work from home. It's very hard to focus on work when you know that just a few feet away (and in the sunshine) your roof drains are waiting to be cleaned, or your lawn is waiting to be cut. Keep a list of daily goals and hours you want to work visible at all times, in order to help you stay organized at the personal level and ignore the distractions that arise when working in a home based, small business office. While you may want to have the nicest lawn of all of the homes, but that should wait until after your business work is done! Of course if your long grass and garden full of feeds is too much of a distraction out of your office window, you always have the option of hiring a landscaping company to do the work for you.
This page is compliments of Rotondi - New York State mold assessor
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