North Star At Home Based Business

Now that you’ve decided to start your at home based business, it might be a bit tough to stick with a routine while working from home.  The laundry still needs to be done–clothes folded and put away. Meals still need to be made.  The lawn needs mowing or the snow needs shoveling.  The chores don’t go away, just because you’re a home based small business.

Of course, that’s one of the best things about working from home — you save the commute time and can can now spend it more productively.

It’s easy to throw  a load of clothes into the washer, or put a meal into the crock-pot — but you also want to make sure you keep your focus on the income-earning side of your home based business.

Here are some tips that work for Mark and me to help us maintain a top home based business and continue to make money from home:

1.  Make a list of EVERYTHING that needs to be done — this includes the daily chores and errands, along with the business tasks that need to be done.  Doing this lets you see the entire picture.

2. Then prioritize the things that need to be done that day — we usually do this with our asterisk system — three asterisks are high priority and one or no asterisk probably means that task won’t be done that day. Any activity that will lead to income is called a money task — those are always three asterisks!  Your ability to earn extra money from home should always be the highest priority!

3.  If you’re working together like we are, we then split up the tasks.  We both have things we’re good at and things we’re not so good at.  Luckily, between the two of us — we’ve got most tasks covered.  So we split up the work and decide what are the most productive areas we need to focus our attention on. 

4. Make sure you do your high-payoff tasks early in the day. We’ve both learned to hold off answering email until right before lunch and right before the end of the day.  Emails can be a real drain and the temptation is to spend time on someone else’s issue rather than our own plans — so we don’t get sucked into email until we’ve completed our money tasks.

5.  Build in time for breaks — you need to recharge your batteries daily — so take a walk, get some exercise, or just relax for a few minutes a couple of times a day.  Protect yourself from burn-out!

We make our lists on a monthly, weekly and daily basis — based on our overall business plan — so if you don’t have a business plan — click here to check out a great business planning software program along with personalized help to put one together by clicking right here.

Click right here to check out another time management article to help you get more done in less time by applying the 80/20 rule! 

This information could change your life TODAY!