Success Television - Career Advice On Being Solo

If you're running a home-based business, it's your time. So take charge of it. Nothing can fuel success like efficient use of your time. Nothing can starve it like wasted time.

Donald Wetmore of the Productivity Institute in Shelton, Conn., figures the average person fritters away 15 hours a week.

At the office, it disappears in brief chats with co-workers and e-mail messages that have nothing to do with work and everything to do with the "Joke of the Day."

At the office, your employer paid the price. At the home office, you do, so get serious.

Wetmore says needless interruptions are the bane of productivity. We might think of work as a string of interruptions, some good, some bad. But no matter how you look at it, phone calls, pagers, e-mail, visitors and family members each take a slice out of our productivity.

You want to be accessible, but you also want to focus on getting the job done and turning your time into money.

So think about blocking your time into groups of similar tasks. Work productively and quietly for a while. Then return calls.

Organizing your office can work wonders. How much time do you waste shuffling paper? The "million dollar real estate" is what you use most often. Those items should live within arm's reach says Donna McMillan, a professional organizer in Los Angeles.

"Create a home for everything," she says. "If you can't find something in 30 seconds, it's in the wrong place."

Smart filing systems reward the time to set them up. Tia Lanzetta of Cardiff-by-the-Sea, Calif., runs three businesses from home and her car. She's a clown, a travel sales agent and a fitness instructor.

"On my desk, I have three trays; one is for phone calls to make, the second is things that need to be written, and the third is things that are on hold."

File folders of different colors give her a visual clue to the contents.

Shirley Long, author of the forthcoming Time Management for the Self-Employed, says creative use of your time gives you an edge over bigger companies. It makes you quicker, and today quicker means competitive.

A former newspaper and magazine editor, Stu Watson writes for and about home-based and emerging growth business. His home office is three blocks from one of the many brewpubs in Portland, Ore.