Your Home Based Writing Business: 3 Simple Ways to Get and Stay Organized

Operating a home based writing business doesn't have to be complicated. You probably don't need formal business training. However, you do need to develop a simple, easy-to-use system for keeping track of finances, paperwork, and your client list.

Based on my own experience with running a home based writing business, here are 3 essential steps you'll need to take in order to stay organized:

Your Home Based Writing Business, #1:

Daily: Track income and expenses.

Common sense, right? The challenge for many people who want to operate a home based writing business is not the "writing" part, but the "business" part. We creative types are often repelled by the nuts-and-bolts aspects of self-employment. If you tend to be lax about your personal finances, you'll need to devise an easy way to track finances for your home based writing business. Otherwise, it won't survive.

Is there a spreadsheet program already installed on your computer? If so, are you afraid of it? Don't worry! All you really need to do is fill in those little rectangles with basic financial information concerning your home based writing business. You don't have to know all of the functions. If you don't have a spreadsheet program, you can start with a blank page in your word processing program instead.

Again, keep it simple, so that you'll actually keep track of finances for your home based writing business on a daily basis. Every time a client pays you, record the client's name, the services provided, and the amount, date and method of payment.

For my home based writing business, I find it helpful to record an entire year's income on a single page in Excel. I use a colored font for the name of each month, then use bold font describing different categories of work: freelance articles, writing workshops, editing, etc. I keep a running total for the month and for each category, so that I can easily see which kinds of projects bring in the most income for my home based writing business.