Avoid Organizational Nightmares

It’s Monday morning, and you’re reviewing your calendar. You suddenly realize you’ve double-booked a client meeting and your daughter’s piano recital. Not only that, Friday is a school holiday you didn’t plan for. Another week, another organizational nightmare.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Life will always be complicated if you’re a mom and a business owner. You’ll never get away from the endless tasks of juggling and rescheduling. But if you take steps to organize your business, you’ll avoid some last-minute upsets.

Besides gaining control over your time and business activities, being organized helps secure investors. Angel investment groups will ask to see your paperwork before they decide to invest in your company, so they can assure themselves that yours is a well-run, well-organized entity. They'll also want to review your company history to determine whether you're a good fit for their finances. You can prepare for this by setting up professional systems and an organizational strategy for your company.

The following are critical steps that will take some of the stress out of running your business--and your life:

Protect electronic data. A computer meltdown or virus can lead to the loss of critical documents, photos and contact information. Today it’s simple and relatively inexpensive to ensure that never happens. An external hard drive is one way to back up important files in case your computer goes kaput. An even safer way to protect your data is through an off-site service such as .Mac (for Mac users) or EVault. These services start at less than $10 per month and safeguard your data from fire, theft or other on-site problems. You can even program them to automatically back up your files on a weekly, daily or hourly basis. Some backup platforms offer additional services for the same price. For example, .Mac provides web hosting, e-mail and other goodies.

Organize your hard copies. While most information can be stored on your computer, duplicate hard copies can be useful. For example, you might want to keep an updated set of binders containing contracts, legal documents and corporate filings. They are easy to refer to, serve as an additional backup and come in handy for presenting to potential investors.

Organize your contacts. Most computers today come with software (such as Microsoft Outlook) that makes it easy to organize your contacts. The key is using them well. For example, will you remember the name of that web designer you recently met on the plane when you need her next year? With a detailed database, you’ll be able to find her contact information whenever you want, even if you don't remember her name.

When it comes to organizing your customers’ contact information--a list that could grow to include thousands of people--there are effective services available. One is Constant Contact. It'll store and update your contact list no matter how large it grows. And it offers additional services that make it easy to send e-mail blasts or newsletters to that database. Constant Contact can also help you weed out obsolete e-mail addresses.

Keep one calendar. I’ve tried it both ways. In my experience, it’s essential for busy business moms to keep one master calendar that includes business obligations as well as family and personal events. This is the only way you can avoid double-booking and ensure that your schedule allows for some semblance of sanity. How you keep it is up to you. Perhaps it’s a big wall calendar the entire family can view and access. Maybe it’s a binder-based DayTimer or your BlackBerry. Web-based calendars (such as Google calendar) allow multiple users to add events and can be effective in coordinating with other family members or company employees.