How I Keep My Work At Home Life Organized, part 1

I’ve run my Internet marketing consulting firm from a home office for the past 10 years. Making sure I don’t spend my days in bunny slippers is a huge challenge. It is soooo easy to fritter away a day if you don’t stick to a routine. Here’s what I do:
The dog runs the show
Even though I am a night person, every day, come hell or high water, I get up at 7 a.m. and take Benny Bix Ochman Labradoodle to the park where he runs with his buddies, and I socialize with their owners, for an hour. We walk three miles round trip, quickly, so we both get some exercise.
[LG]Benny gives this doggie travel kit 3 woofs.[/LG] Going to the park means I have to get up, get dressed, and appear life-like early in the morning.
Email is the enemy
In the hour after we get back I feed him and me, straighten up the house, throw out newspapers from the previous day and magazines from the previous week (read or not, they can’t hang around my tiny apartment). I have breakfast, read three newspapers, wash the dishes.
If I check email as soon as I get back from the park, my routine is shot. I’ll still be in my dog walking clothes at 3 in the afternoon, Benny Bix and I won’t have had any food, I’ll be running on coffee, and my brain will be on overdrive the entire day.
The crucial element
Now comes the critical step. I take a shower, blow dry my hair, put on make-up and get dressed.
I don’t wear business clothes unless I have to go to a meeting. I wear jeans, but getting dressed puts me in the right frame of mind for working. Otherwise, it’s easy to put things off – like going out to do errands.
It might seem silly to have to go all this just to sit at the computer all day, but I need my routine to get and stay organized for the day.
How do you get your day going?