As a small business owner, it is essential to make time to manage your home office. This is the time you can concentrate on your business – plan for the week ahead, learn new skills or software and in effect allow you to serve your clients better and run your business more efficiently and profitably.

If you’re feeling stuck in your business then this may just be the solution to help you build or expand your business and prosper.

Block out a half-an-hour a day consistently, and make time to manage your home office and focus on business development tasks. If you work better with larger chunks of time, then dedicate one afternoon a week to this purpose instead. Or if you can, do both!

Can’t afford the time? You can’t afford not to. We spend most of our time serving clients and often forget that our business needs us too in order to thrive and grow.

Here are 3 reasons why you need this time and suggestions of things you can do in the allotted time to achieve the benefits:

1. Accomplish more. To enable you to run your business more efficiently, plan for the week ahead. Clear your head of your tasks by putting them all down on paper where you can examine them. Create a daily schedule by marking off blocks of time in your day planner or create your own calendar and customize as you go. Tasks always take longer than expected so plan for this. When you have a realistic plan to follow for your day you can focus on the task at hand without being distracted. Remember to make time to manage your home office and work on growing your business!

2. Enjoy less chaos. Gradually go through your piles of papers and either recycle/shred, file or take action as necessary. Maintain your business expenses on a daily or weekly basis. Whether you use a simple excel spreadsheet or keep track of your records with accounting software, there will be fewer headaches for you and/or your accountant at tax time if your records are well documented. Take inventory and order any office supplies you are low on. Toss out pens that don’t work and sharpen pencils. When things flow in your office, so does your business.

3. Serve your clients better and attract new business. Learn a new skill that will enhance your offerings. By being proactive and optimizing the use of technology you are providing more value to your clients. Utilize new software that will make things easier for you in your business too. Technology is constantly changing and it will keep you up to speed with your competition. There are many web-based training courses that you can attend from the comfort of your home.

This is pretty basic stuff but if you begin doing this in your business, it’s a good start. Often we need to get back on track in order to move ahead. Try it and let me know how it works for you!