1. Keep an expense folder. A simple manilla file folder near your work area will do. Any time you come home with a receipt or print off an online receipt pertaining to a business expense, just put that in your "Business Expenses" folder. You don't really need to do anything with it at the moment or even this month. I just keep all my receipts in there so that everything is handy when tax time comes around. It's usually pretty easy to sort and categorize all the items in this folder. You save a lot of time searching all over the house for all your business receipts.



2. Mileage book - Take a small notebook with enough space in it to write the date, beginning mileage, ending mileage and reason for the trip. Then when you get in the car to go somewhere and you know you be doing something business related, you can enter that information. Again, this is a huge time save at tax time. You can just enter the beginning and ending mileages on a spreadsheet and let it do the calculating for you. Then you sum the total of business miles for that year and enter it on the proper line on your tax forms.

3. Idea book - This can be any type of notebook. I prefer a spiral 8 1/2" x 11" notebook. You can have dividers in it for certain subjects if you like. If you write articles you can write an article heading on a page and then add content to it as you think of it. Any time an idea comes into your head you can write it in your idea book. This helps keep your head clear, yet makes sure that you're getting your ideas on paper to make use of at a later time. This helps keep you organized because you can put headings on pages like "Headlines for Ads", "Business Building Activities", "Notes from Seminars", "Affiliate Programs I Want to Check Out", "People I want to Tell About my Business", and any other ideas you can come up with for page headings. Then when you get an idea related to one of these topics you can write it down.

4. Sacred Phone and Computer Time - assuming you need the phone or computer to run your business. If you need some other activity, you can apply that here too. If you have limited time to build a business, you will need to use your time wisely. If you only have 1 hour per day to devote to your business, then assign one half hour per day to each of these activites. It's best to assign the same time each day if possible. You might choose 8:00-8:30pm for phone time and 10:30-11:00pm for computer time. If you have more time than that, you can adjust accordingly.

5. Mini List System - I love making lists. I just hate how the list looks when I'm working my way through it. So what I do now is take 2"x2" sheets of paper. One item on my to-do list goes on that little piece of paper. Then I take what I call sticky tack or any type of moldable clay that you would use to hang posters. You place a small amount of this on the back of that small piece of paper and stick it around the edge of your computer screen, on your refrigerator, on your bathroom mirror. Just put them where you work most of the time or where you will see them most often. Then as you complete that task you can throw that little piece of paper away. This eliminates the messy to-do list and provides a great sense of relief when you can take that little piece of paper and throw it away knowing that task is done. I tried using post it notes but found that they did not stick well enough over time to be usefulf for this system.

I hope these ideas have helped you. Please contact me if you have any other ideas to add to this list.