home is where your office is

 

BEFORE

BEFORE

AFTER

AFTER

This client is a small business owner who operates out of her home, and she asked me to help her organize her home office.  Her biggest challenge was keeping her personal work separate from her business tasks while utilizing the same space for both.  I spent some time questioning and observing her work methods and realized that she was in desperate need of a calendar system.   Together, we explored Cozi. 

Cozi is an online, password safe calendar that allows you to make entries for each day of the year, just as if you were using a day planner.  What is unique about Cozi, is that you can categorize entries to customize your life and needs.  In this instance, we made a category for each member of the family and one for the business.  This allowed her to see what tasks needed to be done for each category each day.  In order to communicate the calendar with her staff, but not wishing to give out family information, Cozi allowed her to share and print only certain calendars at a time.

Cozi was the right option for this client because her email account was unique.  If you use Google or Outlook, these two systems have awesome calendars and can help you be more efficient with your planning.  It's hard to make the switch from writing in a day planner, but imagine copying dates into your calendar with the click of a mouse and not having to keep track of the last place you set down your agenda!

As for the clutter, we went through and tossed unused and unnecessary items, cleaned off surfaces, and put things back with drawer organizers and labels. Voila! Home sweet office.

Copyright 2011 Get It Together Professional Organizing                              Images courtesy of Cozi