If you have a home-based business (38 million Americans do and $427 billion per year is made by them), or you are a full-time peacekeeper and peacemaker at home, or you’re doing both, this blog is for you.

When you think about it, every institution has its “costume.” Prisons, hospitals, courtrooms, restaurants, car repair shops, beauty salons and the list could go on-and-on. But if you Google, Dress for Success at Home you’ll get a gob of photos of people in offices, outside big city buildings and walking on sidewalks all dressed for success for business outside the home.

Hey, you don’t need to look like a Wall Street tycoon to work at home, but there are some important rules for you to follow if you want success and to feel good about your work and yourself. 

When you’re home all day, if you’re not careful you’ll end up in recluse attire! You know, your pajamas. God knows they’re comfortable and cozy and if you don’t have some style boundaries, you could hang out in them for days. That’s probably what’s happened when you see an adult in the grocery store in pajamas. Just remember, this person could be contributing to that $427 billion dollars! 

Actually working at home as a full-time caregiver or an at-home entrepreneur or both, you actually need a wardrobe that changes during the day. Before you panic, the changes are simple, and will save you time, money and peace of mind in the long run.

Rule 1   Pajamas are for sleeping.

Dress in your jammies right before bed as part of your before bed routine. In the morning, get dressed for the next activity which might be exercise, housework, office work, yard work depending on your daily schedule. When you work at home, if you stay in your nightwear, you invariably have that somebody-might-come-over monkey on your shoulder. For your peace of mind, get dressed first thing in the morning.

You'll be shocked at how getting organized just a little will add great joy to you and your family because:

1.   You do 50% less work

2.   You know where everything is

3.   You keep appointments

4.    You’re on time

It’s no secret that countless families are deluged by household clutter.

Flylady says; “The most common clutter hot spots are children's bedrooms, home offices, attics, and garages.” What does it take to create a clutter-free space? Here are my 10 best home organization strategies straight from my book, The Joy of Being Disorganized.

1. Stop Homelessness

One of the main reasons stuff piles up on counters, dining tables, coffee tables and floors is that it’s homeless. When an item has no "home," it gets added to an IPOD
 (Important Pile Of Decisions). The free chapter I'm giving you has great information about the IPODs in your home and how to eliminate them. That’s why it’s important to make sure everything in your home lives somewhere. “Homing” items in the room where they're used, helps ensure that they get put away when you're finished. For example, I keep a sewing kit in a drawer of an end table in my living room, because I like to mend garments in that room and not in my sewing room in the basement.

2. Stop Clutter at the Cash Register

Use that, waiting-to-buy time when you’re standing in line at the cash register, to re-think what’s in your hands or cart. Imagine it as clutter. What you buy today can turn
into clutter tomorrow. The better you are about keeping things out of your home, the less likely you’ll be to create IPODs when you get home.

3. Baby Step your Way to Clutter-free

Start with the room that’s bothering you the most. (In my almost 40-year career helping moms get organized, the kitchen is the room most picked by baby-steppers.) Marla Cilley, the Flylady
says, “Start by shining your kitchen sink.” That’s so brilliant! In order to keep your sink shiny, you have to keep it empty. In order to keep it empty, you and your family have to put dirty dishes in the dishwasher. In order to put dirty dishes in the dishwasher, it has to be empty!

Many people have a hard time decluttering, even when their stuff doesn’t bring them joy.

Have you been holding onto stuff that you really don't care about, and it's cluttering up your life?

Would you love to have a turn-around about how you feel concerning your stash of stuff? Did you know it's easier to get organized when you don't have a lot of stuff?

Read what Emily York did that soothed her fear of letting go and gave her the courage to be free of it. All she did was change her mind and she saw her stuff with a new perspective.

Dear Pam,

As I was watching the S.H.E. De-Junking DVD and I heard you or Peggy say that people tell you all the time they are afraid to let go of their stuff because as soon as they do, they will need it. At that point I said to the television screen, "Amen sisters!" Because that is exactly how I felt. THEN one of you said, "You can let go of your stuff and never have to worry again, because it is at the Goodwill and you can go there and buy it back or just visit it!!"

      I realized I'd been running my own personal

                      version of a Goodwill Store!

You’re,

Probably in your jammies or you slept in workout clothes 

You’ve got “rooster” hair and raccoon eyes and you don’t smell like a rose 

You played Candy Crush Saga until midnight, or one

It’s amazing how the time just flies when you’re havin’ fun 

1. If your home is immaculate and running like a well-oiled clock.

2. Your family begs to help with household chores.

3. You’re happy with your weight.

4. You’re wealthy and debt free.

5. You have a team of professional housecleaners who come and clean daily.

6. You are ecstatic with your marriage.

7. Okay, I thought of another one, you’re never late.

If these reasons aren’t yours, read more. Disorganization affects every area of your life; your finances, your health, your relationships, your stress level and I’m sure you can think of more ways it affects your life.

A Little Organization Goes a Long Way

Getting organized just enough to please you, is the goal. The only reason to get organized is so that life doesn’t get in the way of YOU. When you’re disorganized, you let life run you as you stomp out fires caused by your disorganization. But a little organization goes a long way. Just getting in the habit of looking at your calendar every evening and then again in the morning will increase your level of organization tenfold!

What can be discouraging is trying to get organized when you’re in a huge mess and you don’t know
where to start. That’s like trying to waterski under water. If you’ve ever waterskied you know getting up is the part that takes the most effort, but once you’re on top of the water that’s when the fun begins. It’s exactly the same with being organized in your life. Once you’ve established just a few good habits and you get into a routine that serves you, you’ll glide along with ease. It’s the establishing part that takes a little extra effort. 

Where Should You Start?

How it Feels When You Stop Procrastinating

One of my dear Club Organized members wrote a wonderful blog for me to share with you. Do you see yourself in it?

by Greta Heddy

My daughter says she's the queen of procrastination. In that case, I'm the Queen Mother. I even put off things I want to do. The things that I'm afraid to do, or don't want to do, get put off even longer.

Here's a short list of some of the tasks I didn't want to do from the recent past, with the number of months I procrastinated doing them in parentheses:

    - switching bills to my husband's name at our old house and taking over         the phone bill (4)

    - opening some of the bills from my daughter's appendectomy last fall (8)

    - signing up for a free membership to a gym though my health insurance       (2)

    - putting away boxes from my move (5)

    - changing doctors to get better care for my shoulder (1)

    - taking my car to the dealer because the fix they did last fall didn't work        (1)

    - starting various healthy habits: eating correctly (4); getting enough               sleep (2); exercise (years)

I'm not here to tell you how to get yourself to stop procrastinating. I'm not going to tell you about the negative consequences of putting things off. You know these. I'm going to tell you how it feels when you finally do the things you've been avoiding.

I’ve been asking my Club Organized members to give me examples of going to Plan B either because there was no plan in the first place or Plan A failed. My example was, always putting off getting a gift for someone until the day of, or within the hour of the party. That’s how I came up with more than 100 funny ways to give money. In the end, my disorganization saved me time shopping, money for driving to the mall and my sanity. I always knew I could come up with something I’d put off until the last minute. For more information on this great tool click the box at the bottom of this page.

This email came from by Jill Bowen, one of my charter members. (You can join the club if you can answer “YES” to at least five scenarios on the admissions exam.)  To take the test click on the word "YES". 

Swamp Thing

How would you like to attend a funeral for the death of your credit cards? That was my goal in 2002, when I faced $26,000 in credit card debt. I’d fallen victim to the lure of fake ownership and the do-it-now-pay-later trap! I’d been having real financial difficulty because my sister was ill and I falsely looked at my credit cards as income, hoping she’d get better and we’d be back in business! I wrote all about it in The GOOD Book.

It was during that time that I got real familiar with the “voice” behind my spending behavior. If you are suffering from credit card debt, how old have you been acting to be in the predicament you’re in? I discovered I was nine years old!

Please Attend an Official Credit Card Funeral

I actually had a funeral for my credit cards because I mourned their death and I wanted closure. They’d become friends that paid me when I didn’t have the money to get what I wanted. Flylady attended, joined by her husband, Robert, who is a real judge and who officiated. So not only did I get the funeral, it was official! And there’s more!

My husband videotaped it! I decided at the time, I should open the funeral up to other mourners and allow them to officially bury their credit cards and the rest is not only entertaining and enlightening and it’s history!

Did you know that a daily routine that directs your day and leaves you organized with lots of free time to be spontaneous and play, is filled with good habits? It’s kind of obvious, isn’t it? Of course the opposite is true too.

A day that lacks a collection of good habits and is filled with a bunch of bad ones will leave you frustrated and pooped at the end of the day. But once you’ve established a daily routine filled with good habits, you’ll see how fun and easy it is to be organized.

Once you see how making a good habit is so easy (it just takes time), you can handle more than one new habit at a time.
Baby stepping into change is good, but there comes a time when you have to grow up, if you intend to thrive. Once a bird learns how to fly, it flies; it doesn’t flutter and flop around for years complaining to its flock that it struggles to fly.

If you’ve told me or Flylady you’re fluttering, it’s time to stop it and find out what’s wrong with your wings. I can tell you, most likely your wings are fine, it’s what’s in your head that needs changing. There are thoughts you’ve collected in your life that have become habitual thoughts and they’re the ones that wear you down and keep you from succeeding. They are thoughts you’ve thought so often you don’t even realize you’re thinking them.