Most home professionals work in sub-standard spaces - converted bedrooms, garages and kitchens with a distinct lack of cabinet, work and filing space - and the organizational challenges they create with all this havoc can affect their productivity according to Christy Best, a professional organizer based in the Santa Cruz mountains and who has 11 years of experience on the Central Coast. Bringing order to the chaos begins with one word, she said: Respect.

 

"The first common mistake people make in productively running a home business is that the home office doesn't seem to get the same amount of respect that a regular office does," said Best, who also operates the Web site www.Clutterbug.net. "There may not be any boundary set. Family members may be coming in and out of the room while you're trying to get things done on the phone or there may not be any set work hours."

 

These distractions can create immediate and decisive drops in productivity levels, according to Best, not to mention giving customers a poor impression of a business owner's professionalism.

Best suggested setting not only hours, but ground rules for friends and family members who may share the space.

 

"It may be that you need to work with the door closed during certain hours of the day so family knows that you're doing something important and don't want to be disturbed, or you can leave a sign on the door so that they know you need some quiet," said Best.

 

If your office needs more than a cosmetic fix - decent, usable office furniture coupled with some peace and quiet - put yourself through home office boot camp. Here's how:

Report for duty

Many home business owners don't set schedules for themselves, a formula for disaster, said Best.

Investing in a good day planner and creating a daily schedule, even if you can't fill all of the hours in a business day yet, is the first step on the way to a productive office.

 

Strange, for instance, sticks to a work schedule, even if she never leaves the house.

She gets to work at a set time each morning, takes a lunch break in the afternoon and doesn't leave the office until 6pm, just as she would at any other business.

"I have the freedom to block out the day if I want to take a day off, but I keep a schedule," said Strange, who started off as an Avon sales representative and has grown her business to include not only sales, but training for other representatives.

 

She currently has nearly 130 recruits working under her.

"I take the experience seriously. This is a full-time job, and I treat it like one, but I'm my own boss. I report to myself."

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The Gilroy Dispatch / Hollister Freelance

The happy home office

(Merilyn Strange in home Beauty Center & office)

April 27, 2005

Merilyn Strange carefully applies her makeup, styles her hair and dresses for work, lining up the angle of her name tag and carefully affixing a trendy butterfly pin to her short-sleeved pink sweater top.

She enjoys looking professional and, besides, it's important to be put together if you're going to be selling makeup to other women, she reasons.

 

Personal satisfaction isn't the only reason Strange goes through this process every morning. Though she does feel it helps her sales, getting dressed and made up is a way for her to get her mind into work mode, just one tactic in the arsenal that keeps her full-time home business running smoothly.

 

But motivations like this, while helpful, do not account for all of Stranges success. One of the greatest driving forces behind the Avon beauty adviser and training specialist's rise has been her ability to organize.

Her office is part business center, part retail display room, with each section clearly divided from the next and plenty of clearly marked storage space.

The room isn't large, but non-essential files are boxed, labeled and transferred to the garage for easy access, she said.

For home business owners, an organized office like Stranges may seem, well, a bit strange.