Productivity @ Home

That Time of the Year: Planning Ahead & Getting Organized

Today, I'm going to admit to a "mess" that I need to tackle in my office. Because I'm more a blogger than a businesswoman, my business related finances are a mess this year. 

As I've undertaken more and more business travel, I have fallen into the trap of "waiting until I have time" to organize my receipts from my various trips. Guess what? Now it's the end of November, with year end tax time upon me, and I've got a ton of work to do in the next few weeks to reclaim a sense of order from the jumble of paperwork.

So along with "get this organized", I also have the action item of "planning ahead for next year" to find a system that will be workable, reliable and easy to manage. I'm currently investigating some software solutions that won't be too expensive, too complicated, and too time consuming. I hope to have something in place before the middle of December and would love your suggestions for expense tracking systems for small sized businesses.

Your turn: What are your most effective solutions for business and finance organization? What have you tried that didn't pan out as advertised?

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Giving Thanks for Productivity Tools

As we pause today to give thanks for the blessings that fill our lives, I thought I'd share a few words of gratitude for some of the resources that help me to give my best where it matters most:

• All things Apple -- for my iPhone, my Macbook Pro, my iPad and a multitude of apps, I am eternally thankful
• Abundant Free Wifi -- for the many places where I find a place to work and free, reliable wifi connections, thank you! And double thanks if -- like Panera -- you offer free refills!
• Alternatives to Paper -- for email receipts, Evernote, boarding passes on my smartphone, online banking, and other ways I've been able to eradicate paper in my life, a big "hooray!"
• eBooks - for my Kindle, for iBooks, and even for free pdf versions, thanks to those publishers who let me take my books with me wherever I go

What productivity tools are you thankful for this year?

Evernote 5 for Mac Improves Upon One of My Favorite Productivity Tools

If you're an Evernote User and a Mac, be sure to check out the awesome new update, Evernote 5 for Mac. I've been an Evernote devotee for the past few months, but I tend to use the online version of the tool.

But not anymore.

The Evernote 5 update is clearly popular. As I type this, it's currently topping the App Store's free listings. After playing around with the upgrade, I can say my favorite new features include:

• Shortcuts -- I can easily stash my frequently used templates at the top right sidebar for quick access
• Tags - Organized by both name and note count
• Atlas - Because I travel frequently, I actually love seeing where my notes originated
• Views - I love the variety of note views -- my current favorite is the "card" view, but that will likely change depending upon which notebook I'm using

If you've never checked out Evernote - now's the perfect time to fall in love with an awesome new productivity tool. Happy organizing!

 

Preparing to Pull the Plug

Our family is prepping for a long-planned reunion/vacation that will stretch over the course of nearly two weeks. While I'm thrilled to have the time with my beloved parents, siblings and -- of course -- my own husband and son, part of my is dreading the time away from my home office. Why, am I nuts?! Here are a few of my concerns:

• As someone who runs a home-based business, work doesn't run on a Monday through Friday 8 to 5 schedule. While my load is lighter on the weekends, my operation is really 24/7. This means that if I am going to take a vacation, I need to do a ton of work on the front end to get ready to carve out "protected time".
• If I take an extended break from email, the results will be disastrous when I return to my desk. I'd prefer to keep a handle on email by checking in a few times on vacation via my iPhone.
• My main website will remain up and running during my break, which means that comments will need to be moderated, troubleshooting will still occur, and the usual flow of posts will continue -- hopefully seamlessly for our readers.

All this being said, and with my stress level at a higher than normal rate, I can clearly see the need for some down time. One of the things about being your own boss is giving yourself the same breaks that you would give to someone who worked for you. 

I still have a few days to get ready to pull the plug -- if you have any advice for me, leave a comment below!

Summer Won't Kill My Productivity -- and Other Promises I'm Making to Myself

This is the last week of school for my teenage son Adam, who will enter his senior year of high school in the Fall. As I woke him this morning, I mentally thought to myself "two more days".

Two more days of struggling to wake a teen who (in his mom's opinion) never gets enough sleep.

Two more days of packing him off and then having the bulk of the day home alone while he attends school, music practice and other activities.

Two more days of asking, "Did you do your homework?"

Two more days of cleaning my kitchen and having it stay that way until dinner.

Two more days of knowing that my heart is fullest when my home is fullest...

While the end of the school year throws a bit of a kink into my work schedule, I luxuriate in the less busy days of summer. But there's always a tendancy -- as someone who works from home -- to view these three months until school resumes as "time off". And this year, I truly can't afford any time off. So the following is my effort to mentally formulate a plan that will have me emerging as a winner in August -- a mom who played plenty, but also who got stuff done.

In no particular order, here are a few of my goals for having a non-productity-killing summer:

1. Stick to a schedule. While Adam's allowed to sleep in, Mom's not. Working during the early morning hours when my teen is lingering in bed will allow me time later in the day to enjoy his company and have my work complete for the day.
2. Have realistic goals. This summer is not the time to write a new book, to launch a new project, or to make any life-altering decisions. But it's also not the time to work aimlessly.
3. Take time to dream. Summer is the perfect time for pondering the possible. I'll be traveling quite a lot this summer, and those travel hours always seem to be a great time for brainstorming, making new connections, and imagining the options.
4. Play. More. With one son pretty well launched and another on his way out the door, I recognize the treasure of family time and its fleeting nature too. So while I don't want this summer to be all about not-working, I do plan to lighten my load a bit. I will be taking an extended (and unplugged) vacation for the first time in several years -- and frankly, I can't wait!

Does summer vacation throw your schedule for a loop? How do you keep on track while still enjoying needed refreshment and treasuring family time?

Under Construction: 3 Lessons Learned from Site Redesign Project

We are currently in the process of a major rennovation over at my main website, CatholicMom.com. It's been a few years since the last refresh, so I figured it was time to take the plunge and bite the bullet. Thanks to my amazing designer, Tim Norton of 6WebDesign, the process has been relatively painfree. 

One of the things I've learned over the years is to try to look at moments of "growing pain" like this one with open eyes, and to learn something in the process. So for posterity's sake, I'm going to share a few notes here for myself (and perhaps for you too!) in order to remember what this process has taught me.

Pinterest: A Productivity Tool or a Massive Time Dump?

For the past few weeks, I have been having an awesome time experimenting with the popular new social networking tool Pinterest. Some call Pinterest nothing more than a passing phase or a place for chicks to post photos of new purses. I think they are missing the boat...

As a webmaster and blogger, I have already seen the huge capability of Pinterest to drive traffic to my sites. As with any social networking site, there is a learning curve to figuring out how much is too much, and how to use the tool effectively without becoming "that guy" -- you know him. He's the one you end up blocking or hiding because his stuff is constantly in your face. You wonder how he can even get any work done because he's always on that site, "sharing".

So here are a few rules of thumb I have set for myself when it comes to using Pinterest:

• Limit my time on the site to a few regular check ins per day. Close the Pinterest tab in my browser when it's not one of those times.
• Establish a separate Twitter presence for my Pinterest tweets. Allow friends who are interested in Pinterest to follow me there without forcing the rest of my Twitter buddies to be overwhelmed by tweets about pins.
• Be a good neighbor by liking, commenting or tweeting about other people's items as much as I do my own.
• Establish a limited number of boards that are directly related to my work and interests, but don't branch into to many additional, extraneous boards.
• Don't "follow all" when connecting with other Pinterest users, but rather study their boards when invited to connect and make careful selections to avoid being overwhelmed with information.
• Educate myself about Pinterest's terms of service and the current copyright information that is buzzing around the web. Only pin items that do not infringe on others' rights.

I'd love to hear from you if you are enjoying using Pinterest for work or pleasure. Do you have any tips or techniques that seem to be working well? What have you learned from your use of Pinterest.

Connect with me on Pinterest at http://pinterest.com/lisahendey/

Making Your Messages Work for (Not Against) You

 

This morning, I had an interesting consulting conversation with a non-profit organization which is looking to better optimize its social media initiatives. During the course of our chat, the topic of direct mail arose. I shared my somewhat "dim" view of what I termed "holy junk mail" -- that is, direct mail pieces from wonderful organizations that contain heart-felt pleas for support, but also "free" items that are often religious or spiritual in nature.

Readers here probably know that my faith means a great deal to me. So perhaps you won't be surprised when I share that I have a hard time "tossing" holy junk mail. It sits in a stack on my desk, often unsorted -- and always unresponded to -- until the situation gets out of hand. 

Then it gets recycled.

The conversation has me thinking about the other types of "junk mail" messages I hoard and later trash these days:

• Social media notifications
• Email group messages
• "To do someday" items
• Press releases

Entire books have been written on the topic of dealing with the influx of information that now prevails in our society. I've read a few, and still struggle with my "message hoarding" tendancies, especially in my inbox. Filters help, but what I really need is a different mindset that helps me attend immediately to what matters most, deal with it and move on.

I've also been pondering the message I send -- am I contributing to the clutter with my posts, tweets and pins? Or am I adding value for those I serve?

The jury is still out...

Survival Guide Offers Work @ Home Tips

Every Monday, I share my thoughts on Working @ Home.

While I haven't read the book yet, CNN has a great article today featuring tips from the newly released Working Mom Survival Guide. I'd contend that the suggestions offered in CNN's excerpt Working from Home -- and Getting Things Done are relevant for all of us, not just moms. 

The excerpt shares five common pitfalls faced by those who work @ home, and offers some great suggestions for avoiding these traps. This one has great relevance for me personally:

Gadget addiction

You may find yourself constantly checking your gadgets to stay in the loop. The problem is, that urge can spill into family time, leaving you less connected with the ones who matter most.

What to do: Take e-mail breaks. Let colleagues know that you won't be checking your inbox while you work on a project and that they can call you if something comes up.

I've been working over the past few months to carve out more "protected time" for my faith life, my family, and frankly for fun too. I still find that having my office in the heart of my home tempts me all too frequently to not keep healthy work/life boundaries. I love the fact that my commute is nil and that I can completely set my own schedule, but I do find that sometimes being my own boss means that my supervisor all too often has "issues"!

Take a look at Working from Home -- and Getting Things Done - what challenges on this list can you relate to and what would you add to the list? Also, be sure to check out Working Mom Survival Guide and find more information on the book here. 

 

Winter Cleaning for Your Home Office

Every Monday, I share my thoughts on Working @ Home.

As we anticipate the crazy busyness of December, I'm looking at these last three bonus days of November as a chance to organize my life and my home office a bit before the hectic schedule kicks in. I recently relocated to a lovely new home office in the former dining room of our house. It's a larger space than I had before with room for floor to ceiling bookshelves, great lighting and easy access to my kitchen and laundry room. But because it is also easily visible, I want to do my best to keep the piles to a minimum and keep things looking nice for my family and visitors. 

I tend to be a "stacker" -- meaning that things that need doing or processing land up in large stacks on my ample desk. For the past few weeks, I've been looking at what falls into these stacks, and trying to organize them into categories. This will hopefully help me to develop a workflow and see what's causing some items to remain stalled in the stacks!

My goals for this week's office organization effort include:

• Better organize the shelving space in my office
• Decrease desktop clutter by devising a filing system for items that need handling -- eradicate stacks!
• Dust and clean the hardwood floors. Dust the blinds
• Go through the myriad "sticky notes" stuck near my computer and complete those tasks or remove them
• Organize my "reading corner", creating a tickler file for items to be read and a basket for daily reading items
• Clean up my computer desktop

This should be enough to keep me more than busy for these last few days of November. If you're looking for a helpful article on organizing your home office space, check out this great one from Real Simple that offers several great product ideas to help you regain control of the chaos.

What would you put on your office's "to do" list to help you get better organized?