Currently Reading: Working Naked

My pal Lisa Kanarek over at Working Naked has put out a book by the same name: Working Naked: A guide to the bare essentials of home office life.

Lisa’s gig is streamlining the home office process, so that you aren’t shoved into a corner of your dining room, buried under a pile of receipts.

For $12, Lisa’s book is jammed with little lists of small changes you can make NOW, which will reap big rewards in the longer term. What to keep and what to shred, how to avoid cluttering up your desk with tchotchkes that are marketed to make you feel more organized (but really don’t help at all), and management of your space and your time.

Every freelancer has to account for every minute of their working day to ensure that they maximize billable hours. If you spend client time searching for a specific folder of materials instead of working on the project at hand, you can’t bill your client for your disorganization.

For those that work at home (I’ve recently gone back to being a corporate whore – at least for a while), managing your office space and keeping it separate from your family life can be hard, especially if you have kids, pets, spouses and whatnot underfoot all the time. It’s too easy and convenient in the short term to put your personal and project files into the same cabinet, or keep your stuff strewn across the coffee table, but once you start mixing work with “real life,” chaos ensues. Little fingers grab stray papers, the dog knocks over your coffee cup, or your husband keeps wandering into your office space to find his passport or what-have-you.

Working at home means running a very tight ship, managing your time efficiently, and still making room to enjoy the experience of not having to commute every day to be part of the corporate grind.

Check out Working Naked: A guide to the bare essentials of home office life by Lisa Kanarek, and make your 2011 resolution to organize your home office!