Whiteboards are most often associated with an educational setting or maybe even with boring sales seminars. You rarely associate them with anything else. It's amazing how very few entrepreneurs have a whiteboard in use at their home office.

It's an essential business tool!

Why would a business person working from home need a whiteboard? That's easy to answer with one single word - organization. A whiteboard gives you the single best way you can have to stay organized in a hectic world.

You all know how it goes. You get a phone call or have a sudden brainstorm of ideas. The idea or note gets scribbled on a piece of paper and left on your desk. It may or may not get actioned by you. Later in the day you have another idea which also gets scribbled on a scrap of paper and left on top of your other notes on the desk. Tasks, jobs, callbacks and customers get lost, missed and forgotten.

Now switch things around. If you had a whiteboard in your office the next idea or appointment you have gets put up there instead. No matter where you sit in your office you can see it. You're constantly reminded of it. You have to do something about it. One thing is certain you most certainly won't forget it.

You can easily section off your whiteboard into two columns and a single header row. The header row can contain one or two long term goals so you're constantly reminded of where your business is going and why you're working so hard. Column one then contains urgent appointments or tasks. Column 2 contains ideas for new products, service or promotions. The act of actually standing up and writing on the whiteboard stimulates even more ideas so your biggest problem might be running out of space.

Of course if you're going to to buy a whiteboard you'll need to get some accessories like whiteboard markers, a whiteboard duster and also some cleaner for the board itself. The expense involved is considerably less than you might imagine with some large whiteboards on sale from office suppliers for as little as $40.

Another alternative is to use whiteboard paint on a blank wall space in your office at home. This amazing paint converts any flat, dry surface into an instant whiteboard of any size you want. There's a certain childish freedom to being able to scribble on walls that many of us "grown ups" can appreciate.

So if you're tired of missing appointments and losing important notes then invest in a small whiteboard. You'll be amazed at how much easier it makes your working life.