Being one of the lucky people in the world that gets to work from a home office, and in recognition of International ‘Work in Your Bathrobe Day’ (which celebrates work at home professionals) I thought I’d post a couple of tips that help me to improve my efficiency. I would love to hear what works for other ‘30-second commuters’!

First of all, having two children under the age of three means that I simply can’t be tied to a desktop computer every day. I purchased a notebook computer when I started my business and it has served me well. Where my office is ’stationed’ isn’t necessarily where I get to steal some time to work, so having my computer portable is a must. I can take my work to wherever the children are playing.

It’s time for an upgrade, actually, and I’m thinking of going with a MAC next time…anyway…that’s neither here nor there!

My filing cabinet is nowhere that little fingers can reach it. It’s better that way. But I found it very inconvenient to have files stacking up on my desk and having to go to a different room when I needed something quickly.

I purchased a cheap black plastic file box that I can carry around with me. It has tons of letter-size hanging files and I have one set up for each of my clients, my own business and personal items. It makes it much easier to reach down into this tote for the files I need, rather than making a trip to another part of the house.

I’ve recently read about a new product in the February issue of ‘Entrepreneur’ magazine. It’s called CloudPrint, and it’s an HP product, in beta. CloudPrint downloads and installs a virtual printer driver to your computer. Then you can print from your word processing program or email it to CloudPrint to retrieve later. Sounds like a bit of a fancy PDF converter to me, but they have more sophisticated plans for CloudPrint in the future. Might be worth checking out.

I truly love being able to work from home. As I sit here in comfortable, casual clothes (no bathrobe even though it’s the holiday for it - I’d never get anything done!) watching the snow accumulate outside my living room window, watching my daughter play and listening to Etta James, it’s hard to imagine working a traditional 9-5 job again. If it weren’t for this huge pile of work staring at me and my 30 item to do list for today…this is almost relaxing

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One of my fabulous VAs, Victoria, is just the best at finding cool software solutions. Yesterday she sent me a link to a program that has resulted in the freeing up of a ton of my time and it’s keeping me on the ball like nothing else!

It’s called Toodledo, and you know it has to be good because of the name.

What it is, is a program to manage your daily/monthly/weekly/yearly/wheneverly ‘to-do’ items and goals- hence the name ‘Toodledo‘.

So, you might be thinking, “ya, big deal, another to-do manager”, but listen up! This one is different. It has a super cool Firefox add on so right now, as I type, my list is staring me in the face on the left hand side of my screen.

I’ve asked Victoria to take over my email management because it eats up way too much of my time, and because I upgraded from a free ‘Toodledo‘ account to a Pro Version (for the hefty sum of $14.95/year) I can add Victoria as a collaborator. She can add tasks for me as things come up in my email, so I can deal with them.

I’m one of those people that’s very motivated by crossing off items on a list, so this is just perfect for me. Yesterday I accomplished an amount of work I didn’t think was even possible, because it was all listed right there for me all day. Tasks are organized by folders, which I have set up for each of my clients, Mann Made Time, and my personal items. Since I don’t necessarily need Victoria to know when I’m going for a physical or what grocery items I am out of, I set up my own personal folder as private so she won’t know what’s in there. Not that it matters, because she has enough information about me, including all of my passwords, to completely hack into my life anyway.

Anyway, It also has a very cool feature with the Pro Version that’s perfect for those that procrastinate or are easily distracted. You can tell Toodledo that you have some free time, let’s say one hour, and it will search your hottest or highest priority items and tell you what you could do for that hour. You can even choose one of your folders (or clients) for it to pick tasks from.

It really is a great tool, and you can get an account for free. Check it out!

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As you can see, I have decorated my virtual office for the month of February, I hope you like it. I must find out who sent those roses.

To share the love a little bit, I have decided to feature a client here on my blog.

One of my very favorite clients is a real estate agent based in St. John’s Newfoundland, by the name of Larry Hann. If you’re considering relocating to St. John’s you should check out his general website LarryHann.com or his specialty site StJohnsCondos.ca. Both sites are the most advanced, consumer friendly real estate websites in Newfoundland and Labrador. His sites are easy to navigate,  full of useful up to date information and feature Google mapping for your real estate searches.

Larry likes me too! Here’s what he has to say about working with me:

“I found Jaime Mann’s website in the summer of 2007, and immediately contracted her real estate services. Her assistance is second only to my website to help drive my business. Once I have signed contract in place, Jaime takes over and I’m free to pursue new business. She is a skilled professional who I have found to be articulate, flexible, pleasant, and supportive in all aspects of building my business. Jaime is also well connected. When I have a question that she is unable to answer, someone in her vast network of real estate VAs can. I highly recommend Jaime’s services.” Larry Hann.

I’m blushing

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When I was a little girl, probably around four years old, one of my favorite things to play with was a set of ceramic salt and pepper shakers. One was a boy duck and one was a girl duck…a drake and a hen? What’s a female duck called? Anyway, that’s not important. I loved playing with them. They belonged to my great grandmother who lived with us when I was little.

One day when I was playing with the ducks, something went terribly wrong and one of them was decapitated. I was so upset and scared. I was told time and time again to be careful not to break them and here I’d gone and broken one. I’m sure these weren’t very valuable salt and pepper shakers now, but then, they were as precious as gold to me. And I was terrified that my grandmother would be mad at me for breaking one. I remember I wasn’t even really supposed to be playing with them. I’m sure that was to protect me from cutting myself on a sharp edge - I know that now because I’m a mom.

So in my little four year old mind, I hid the broken duck so nobody would know what happened. I covered up my crime. And it was eating away at me.

Of course because grown ups seem to know everything when you’re four, someone discovered that the duck had been broken.

From here, the details are fuzzy, but that was almost 25 years ago.

What I do remember was that my mother told me that I had to tell Nanny what happened. I remember I was crying when I went in to her room to deliver the bad news. I told her what happened. Spilled my guts to her.

She’s gone now, but Nanny, do you know what an important lesson you taught me that day?

She wiped my tears and told me that no matter what, it’s always best to just tell the truth. She wasn’t angry or even upset with me. That was the most important part of the lesson. I told her the truth and she gave me some bubble gum. She rewarded me for telling the truth.

In my adult life, I just don’t lie. I don’t fudge the truth. When I mess up I fess up.

What does this have to do with my virtual assistance business, or any business? Everything!

If I make a mistake - er…when I make a mistake with my clients’ work (which rarely happens by the way, but nobody’s perfect) I don’t try to create a story to cover it up. I believe that you must be honest. Your clients will think much more of you for it.

My own associates are very quick to tell me if a project I’ve asked them to do would be done better by someone else. I appreciate that so much. Rather than trying to muddle through it and eat up hours of my time, they are honest and up front so I can find the right person to do the job.

When you make a mistake will the world end? In most cases, no. It might feel like it at the time. But what feels worse than getting caught in a lie? What does that do to your integrity as a business owner?

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Last month I was raving about a collaboration tool I found called Assembla. Well…while Assembla is a really good tool, after using it for a couple of weeks, I determined it wasn’t right for me. I was going nuts from the number of alerts I was receiving and the information I entered seemed to be scattered and difficult for me to find.

Lesson learned - when using a new collaboration tool, test it out before adding your clients!

One of my associates, Victoria, who seems to know about all the coolest software going, steered me towards something for virtual assistants. It’s called Client Spot. And I’m in love. The information is organized very well and while it’s more expensive than Assembla (which is free) it’s going to reduce my stress. How valuable is that?

To all my VA friends, check it out. It’s quite wonderful.

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