Copyright 2005 Sharon Crawford

“Would you like to find time to take a micro-vacation from your business?”

Elizabeth Verwey, 48, of Home Office Mentors, Toronto, Canada, reels in time-starved entrepreneurs with the above line. Elizabeth learned her organizational lessons with multi-tasking planning community events, speaking at these events, and raising two children (now 19 and 23). As Director of New Development for Performers for Literacy, she started The Second Story, a storefront reading series for children in malls Canada-wide. She also organized charity events such as Scrabble for the Stars.

When her hero, her older brother, died of a heart attack at 50, Elizabeth figured she had thirteen years left. She surveyed her friends and most called her a mentor. Research showed the home office as a future trend. In 1997, Elizabeth founded Home Office Mentors to help home-based entrepreneurs manage time and space so they can run their business and enjoy life. She mentors through individual consultations, monthly groups, workshops, and seminars.

Elizabeth defines a micro-vacation as “four to twenty-four hours alone in a place that refreshes and recharges you.” She spends one day a month at the home of a vacationing friend or family member and reads, walks, lunches out or visits an art gallery.

For her time-strapped and work-harassed clients, Elizabeth recorded The Joy of Micro Vacations – Your Island of Time. Her twenty-minute tape follows the Who, What, When, Where, Why and How to convince home-based entrepreneurs to leave home and take a holiday. “You have to start small when you’re stuck in the vortex of your business. Start at four hours and work your way up.”She coaxed a real estate agent addicted to cell and pager to keep the technology at home and eat out. The agent ventured into an art gallery and “he came back refreshed with new ideas just bubbling up for problem solving. He now is down to working six months a year.”

Elizabeth’s clients fill in a questionnaire which tells her if time or space looms the heaviest. For time, she suggests that entrepreneurs delegate, delete, and dovetail their responsibilities, and sneak in a micro-vacation. Elizabeth chose a printer near a public garden; during the ‘wait’ for her materials, she ducks into the garden.

For space, she helps clients set up the office so they can spend time working instead of conducting paper hunts. With an artist/musician who had jumbled artistic supplies and musical instruments throughout his attic workspace, Elizabeth says, “we defined the zones of the room based on what he does.” The result accommodated three zones music (guitars), art (draft table) and creative dreaming (chair) in an alcove. She also developed a paper highway through his office.

Elizabeth sees office moves as “such a small part of the responsibility of a business,” and encourages clients to “be realistic; decide who does what,” and purge files before they move. She arranges the new office, not to replicate the old, but to facilitate the new space’s modus operandi. “No matter what office I go into, I can find something to tweak. It’s just another pair of eyes.”

When the home office going gets tough, Elizabeth offers mentoring support circles at libraries, churches and community centers, online and by phone.  Each in-person circle attracts twenty entrepreneurs, mainly in the service industry. Sometimes the group creates its own synergistic union. A government writer who played violin in a trio connected with a minister who refers him to congregation members looking for wedding musicians.

Elizabeth conducts seminars and workshops for professional groups, such as the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, mentors entrepreneurs through the City of Toronto’s Entrepreneur Centre, and several youth groups because “I relate to them well.” Seminars focus on writing business plans, growing your network, juggling multiple priorities, goals, and time management.

Elizabeth’s networking evolves from professional organization membership Canadian Association of Professional Speakers, Women in Home Office Networking, and the PRIDE Business Network.  She’s spoken to the Editors’ Association of Canada and Women Entrepreneurs of Canada, been interviewed in Profit magazine, appeared on business radio shows, writes for business magazines, and e-mails her monthly newsletter, A Mentor’s Moment.  

“Sometimes my office gets a little messy.” Then Elizabeth Verwey hits the road for her micro-vacation.