One benefit of organization is increased productivity. When you are more organized, you use your time more wisely, so you have more time and energy to do what you enjoy. To be more productive, make your office a place you enjoy being. Here are ten tips to make your workplace more fun, even if you work from home.

1. Paint walls (or just one wall) a striking color that you love.

2.Hang wallpaper or a simple border.

3.Re-arrange furniture for a fresh perspective.

4.Hang some beautiful art on walls.

At some point, most businesses are going to need to have some help from an IT consultant. Maybe your business is small, without many IT resources. Maybe your company is larger, with significant resources in IT already, and just needs a healthy dose of outside perspective. Whatever reason, it can be difficult to choose an IT consultant, especially if you aren't a technical person.

I've heard stories about selecting consultants from all sorts of people. Quite a few have told me heard horror stories about how they wound up with large bills and little or nothing to show for it. Fortunately, it doesn't have to be hard to choose an IT consultant, because I've used knowledge I've accrued to create some guidelines you can use in choosing your IT consultant.

A Contract Programmer or an IT Consultant?

There are quite a few contract programmers out there masquerading as IT consultants. A real IT consultant isn't in business of writing code; rather, he's in business of solving problems, and code just happens to be one of way that he (or she) does it. Conversely, a contract programmer will want you to spell out exactly what kind of program you want him to write. He doesn't solve problems; he just writes code way he's told, and hopes it will fix problem at hand. With a real IT consultant, you wind up with a solution that leaves everyone happy.

Focus on benefits, not technology.