Do it yourself

I got another add from a company that wants to clean my house today. Sometimes the idea appeals to me. I adore clean work and living spaces, but it's almost impossible to achieve unless I'm constantly running behind my two little mess-making cyclones (read: children).

So what's a girl to do?

Well, there's nothing wrong with cleaning your own toilet. I think it keeps you humble ... in a good way. Do you think Mark Sanford would have had time to run around with his Argentine hottie if he was busy cleaning up his own messes? It's a funny idea.

But on a serious note, my real resistance to hiring a cleaning service—beyond cost—is guilt. A few years ago, I read Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich. The premise is fantastic. Barbara takes a series of minimum wage jobs to demonstrate how people can't survive on minimum wage. One of the jobs she took was with a cleaning service.

And we should all be ashamed. These (mostly) women are hardly more than slaves, just so everyone in America can afford to have someone else wash their floors and wipe their windowsills.

So I say, "No thanks." I'd rather scrub my own floors. It's character building, right? That's what I tell myself. At the very least, it keeps me humble.

Oh, you'll do it for me?

I'm naughty, and I've occasionally been known to play the helpless little girl role in stores to get what I want. (Does this come with any discounts? *Twirling my hair, sheepish grin*) In my search to get organized I made a wonderful discovery—the Internet makes this all possible without the hair twirling.

Case in point: The freelance project I'm working on has been slaughtering toner cartridges. It's insane. Thousands of pages. And it ran out yesterday, mid-project. The thought of loading the kids in the car and driving around to six different office supply stores to find the right fit nearly unhinged me.

Guess what? I found my cartridge online. And a $20 discount. And they'll deliver it. And so $86 becomes $66 dollars that shows up at my home the next day without all the hassle.

And I just worked a little smarter. (And I can save that helpless little girl role for the next time I want my husband to hang a picture.)

Get it together, Part 1

One of the most difficult elements of a home business for me is getting organized. I really LOVE to put my folders together, to label them carefully with assignments, and print out my notes. For me, it's an inescapable part of the process.

I've written before about the importance of a separate work space. It's an idea I'm committed to, but I haven't yet managed to completely follow through. So, for me at least, this July is my "Get Organized" month. With five projects in the works right now--and the promise of more any day--it's really crunch time. No way I'm gonna survive if I don't do this, like, now.

Here's what I'm doing to get started:

1. Planning regular babysitting time for 2-3 hours at least once a week.
2. Setting daily goals--just as I did when I worked in an office full-time.
3. Recycling the leftovers from completed assignments to star fresh.

Want to try it with me?