Today we have a guest blogger to share her ideas, tips, and inspiration with us! Her name is Elaine K Stephen of
Inspirational Gift Gallery She has inspirational Christian Stories, Poems, Gifts and a Blog. Be sure to check out what else Elaine has to offer!
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One of the first things I noticed when I started my home business was that there were an awful lot of tasks that had to be tended to on a regular basis and still fit them in with all my personal life tasks too. I started writing sticky notes and attaching them to my computer monitor. Before I knew it, I had so many sticky notes on my computer monitor, they just blended in with the edge of my computer monitor and I stopped reading them. I was always behind on getting things done or late for appointments. I needed to organize my business and personal life tasks, and real soon!
I thought and thought about what would work for me and here is what I came up with…
I purchased an eraser board, a cork bulletin board and a pocket calendar. On one side of the eraser board, I listed all of my business and personal life tasks that had to be performed on a regular basis. I listed them in order of importance, daily tasks, weekly tasks, monthly tasks, quarterly tasks and annual tasks. On the other side of the board I would add in appointments, holiday and vacation plans, and one time projects that I wanted to accomplish. I selected an eraser board because I wanted something that would be easy to change. As my business grew and changed, so would my business tasks and personal life plans are always changing. I wanted something that would be large enough to fit and see everything at a glance and hard to ignore without wasting a lot of paper.
The cork bulletin board was a necessity because along with certain business tasks come informational papers. I wanted to be able to get my hands on what I needed fast and easy. I tacked up my papers with push pins. When it is time to update them, it is fast and easy to replace them.
When I was leaving the home to go to work, keeping track of days and dates was much easier. I had to be at work on certain days and at certain times and I had to request vacation time, so who could help but keep track of time? But when I started working from home and had the freedom to work whatever days and times I wanted to, suddenly keeping track of the days and dates became much harder. A pocket calendar was a necessity.
Now it was time to put my plan into action. If I didn’t do it immediately, my eraser board, bulletin board and pocket calendar would have become as obsolete as my sticky notes in a very short amount of time. I decided that every morning as soon as I took care of my son’s and my own personal needs, I would go directly to my computer room and pick up my pocket calendar and mark the day. Then I would look at my eraser board and determine what I needed to accomplish that day. I would look at my daily task (examples: processing orders, reading hour with my son), weekly tasks (example: every Monday update product availability, every Friday go food shopping), monthly tasks (example: last day of the month, tally up state sales tax collected, 1st day of the month review my personal checking account statement) and quarterly tasks (example: submit my state sales tax online, plan upcoming holidays and vacations) and write out my day’s schedule on a piece of paper that I could carry along with me wherever I went.
It wasn’t long at all before I could complete my daily schedule in 10 minutes or less. By following the schedule and marking off tasks as I accomplished them, my business and personal life was finally organized. Things were getting done on time!
As we all know, nothing is perfect. Sometimes an emergency occurs, I forget to write an appointment on the board, or the tasks on the board take longer than the day is long. But one thing I can say for sure is, I always know what day it is!
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Thanks Elaine!
