Many businesses nowadays depend on the computer and Internet for functioning, or at least for inventories and bookkeeping, paying bills and doing banking. 
Some are almost completely dependent on a functioning computer and Internet.
What happens when everything malfunctions?  How do you continue?  We had problems with our Internet connections last week so that none of the computers in the house could access it.  My writing/blogging business depends entirely on being able to access the Internet.  My husband’s business is about 75% dependent on the Internet.
So what should we do?  I wrote about this at My Organized Biz…how to organize yourself so …read more

 Being distracted is so easy when you’re working at a home business, especially when there are family activities and obligations. 
This is a challenge so many home business owners face, so sometimes they find meeting deadlines and being productive a challenge.
 Productivity, whether it’s making a product or performing a service, is the desired result of a home business. Without adequate productivity, you will find you aren’t earning money.
 Here are some tips for being more productive:
 *Set specific working hours and try to stick with them.  Yes, you often must work around other activities in the household and with your family. However, if …read more

When is your best time of day for productiveness?  When are you at your best to get your work done?
Sometimes we don’t have a choice with our home business.  There are deadlines to be met, a job to schedule around, family commitments to meet.
However, if we have some idea when we’re at our best, we can accomplish more.  We can try to schedule our most pressing work for then. 
For instance, if you work best in the early morning (at midday or in the evening), you’ll want to arrange your life so you can aren’t otherwise tied up at that time.  You …read more

With the new concepts about outsourcing (perhaps actually a new name for subcontracting), you may want to learn evern more about it to see if it’s feasible for your home business.
I wrote a post at Blisstree’s Arts and Crafts section which describes outsourcing as it applies to craftspeople who are developing businesses, Have You Considered Outsourcing?
We’ve also addressed the topic previously here at Home Biz Notes:
Outsourcing – An Option for Your Home Business
Outsourcing for a Work Life Balance
Working from Home for a Home Business or Someone Else
Virtual Assistants
 
(Image:sxc.hu)

Are you productive or simply busy in your home business?
Have you organized yourself for the most productivity?
Ask yourself these simple questions and be truthful as you analyze your business and your activity.
What have you found as you look at what you’re doing, especially if you aren’t where you should be or aren’t making the money you’d like. Yes, some things that you can’t control, like the current economy, will affect your bottom line. So this is the time when you should cut out waste and maximize your time.
Do you have a productivity tip to share with our Home Biz Notes …read more

If you plan on getting a refund, you may have already completed your income tax return.  If not, I have some suggestions to help you get through this process with minimal pain:
Gather Business Information. This is probably the most difficult part, if you haven’t been keeping track.  When I did my business taxes, it took me weeks to figure everything out, because I didn’t do all the accounting as I was going along last year.
The best way to do your 2008 books is to shut the doors, turn off phone and email, and just git-er-done.  Then when you emerge, vowing …read more

Did you ever have one of those flashes of inspiration that cause you to say, “Why didn’t I think of this before?” One of those happened to me today.  I have been on my “Getting Things Done” kick since the beginning of the year and I have been piling up all kinds of stuff that I want to save, but I don’t want all the paper lying around.
Today I was looking at a PDF and the light bulb went off in my head – Wow!  I coulda had a PDF!  i realized that, with my new Brother printer I can …read more

Getting squeezed by email?  Is it reducing your productivity in your home business? Email is, like most new inventions, wonderful and at the same time frustrating.  I talked with one home business owner recently who said she had over 1,000 email messages in her in-box.  That’s not including spam, which she dutifully marked as it came in.  And email is, as Mark Twain said, like the weather – everyone talks about it but no one does anything about it.
In my recent interview with David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, he mentioned that we should consider email like the phone, …read more

Last month I was really excited about working with a professional organizer and using David Allen’s book Getting Things Done to organize my new home business.
A month later, I can report some progress and a lot of frustration.
My Progress: I bought a labelmaker (it’s fun!) and I have been labeling files and folders. I have folders on my desk now – one for each day of the week. So if I have something to do (like sending out 1099s last week to my VA and my web-person) I put it in the appropriate day-of-the-week folder so that I have a …read more

Last month’s “book of the month” here at Home Biz Notes was David Allen’s book Getting Things Done.  I finally got to interview David Allen about organizing your home business office.  Here are my questions and his answers:
How do you organize a home office where you have to keep home and business separate (for the home office tax deduction)?
I don’t know that you have to keep things separate as long as you keep the percentages straight (what percentage of your office is for home and what percentage is for business).  You could keep two alphabetical files in separate places, too.  …read more