What keeping time really means is...being on time!

You know, there was once a upon a time when my friends or my husband's friends invite us for dinner or a gathering, they would expect us to be late by half-an-hour. They would be totally prepared if we were late and come in with unironed clothes, grouchy kids and soup stains all over our jeans and shirts. But whenever we appeared earlier or ON TIME, they would all start writing down numbers to buy lottery the next day!!

I never really realized how important timing is until a client woke me up. I didn't really piss him off but he subtly reminded me that being on time would bring me more customers and also more referrals. Coincidentally, that was also the time that I was looking through a book about being organized and becoming a more successful home-preneur.

My husband is a fanatic about time - so, my disregard towards timing makes him ill - really, really ill. Sometimes so ill that he would promise to throw the whole idea of going out together out the window.

Then it occurred to me - if it was so important to my husband, imagine what it would be like for my clients. Imagine what it would be like for them to have to wait for me all the time when THEY ARE PAYING ME TO DO WHATEVER THEY HAVE ASSIGNED FOR ME!

Thinking about it and mentally reversing the situation made me really sit up and think. And today, I am no longer as late as I used to be. I can be an occassional much-too-laidback or lackadaisical or procrastinator...whatever you call it.....person but, all in all, timing is now more important to me.

It's very important for us, home business owners, to be timely than for others. If, for example, a sales person from Braun is late for an appointment, you'd just sit back and wait cause they're BRAUN, you know what I mean. They must have about 100 appointments a day. But when a home business owner is late about handing up a project, the client would automatically think one thing - this person is not serious about his/her business. And it's bad to work with someone who's not serious about his/her work. And you know, you'll just lose the business this way - much too easily.

So, take my advice. If there was one thing you have to change. it's your timing.

Everything else, you can change tomorrow.....no pun intended here. :-)

Marsha Maung is a freelance work at home graphic designer and writer who resides in Selangor, Malaysia with her husband, Peter and 2 kids, Joshua and Jared. She is the author or "Raising Little Magicians" and other work at home books. For more information, please visit http://www.marshamaung.com