Your Home Office & Business Management & Productivity

Your Home Office

As the nucleus of your home-based business, setting up and organizing your home office can be the key to your success:

Learn to separate work from play—

Although working at home is fun, you must learn to mentally separate your work from your personal life. Otherwise you'll get it mixed up and both will suffer.
Do not put too many personal things in your working space and vice versa.
Separate the "home" from the "office"—Yes, you have a home office or a SOHO (Small Office Home Office) as it's popularly called. But you need to physically separate the two. For this reason, it is never a good idea to put your office in your bedroom or share it with any other room.

If you have a small living space and can't afford a separate room, do what I do. Just determine which part of your hall or living area to convert to your home office, and mentally draw a "line" separating it from the rest of the room. You can also put full or partial partitions if you want. Separate entrance is best—If you can afford it, create a separate door or entrance into your home office.
This is especially useful if you expect a lot of clients at home. Create wireless networking—Cables are messy and troublesome. If you have more than one PC just use wireless routers and create a wireless environment in your home. Be fully equipped for business—Technology has made things cheap, so make full use of it.

I personally use the TelExtreme VoIP service that gives me unlimited calls to local, domestic and international fixed and mobile phones for a flat rate. I use Skype when I travel with my notebook and use it to automate all incoming phone calls, record messages and send them to my email (you can learn more on how to do this with my e-book on Internet Telephony).

You could also get a 3-in-1 fax, copier and scanner for under RM800!
You can't afford to have an ill-equipped home office if you're serious about making the type of income you dreamt about. Business Management & Productivity When you are a "one-man-show" small business dreaming of doing multi-million dollar big business, you'll definitely need these tips: Set your working hours—The number one mistake people make is thinking they can work whenever they feel like it. This can backfire, so make sure you set regular working hours such as 10.00am to 5.00pm and stick to it as much as you can. Of course since YOU are the boss now, you can set your time as you like, and you can always adjust a little here and there.

Have an efficient follow-up system—

Use email auto-responders, voice message recorders and even toll-free numbers to manage inquiries and follow-ups. This would free up tons of your time and also help you to focus on planning your next strategic business moves instead of being a phone operator.

Don't get distracted—

If you use email notification software (like Gmail Notifier) or instant message services like Yahoo Messenger or MSN Messenger, turn all these off during work hours. Don't be checking your email throughout the day, as it DOES NOT help you be focused. Instead, dedicate a few hours in the morning or evening to answer emails. If you find that the bulk of your daily time is spent looking at emails, then you're having the wrong strategy and focusing on the wrong priorities