There are a number of reasons why over 95% of all home based entrepreneurs fail. I believe the top three are as follows: 1) A lack of good marketing 2) A lack of needed mentorship 3) A lack of good organization. The third may surprise many, but anyone who actually makes a decent living from a home based business knows it is true. I struggled for months when I first started working from my home office. I left my fifty-five hour a week management position to be at home with my children and learned that regardless of what type of business you are in, juggling your personal and professional life can be difficult. For the home based business owner I believe it is much more so. This article is an explanation of the daily planner system that I use, which allows me to stay focused, motivated, and productive!Your daily planner should achieve five basic goals.1) It must have the flexibility to be practical (especially if you have small children)2) It must have the structure to keep you focused and working every day3) It must allow you to schedule tasks, meetings, follow ups etc. down to the hour4) It must allow you to document the achievement of tasks as you successfully finish them5) It must allow you to quickly roll over time and tasks into the future as neededI have reviewed many different programs for daily planning over the last year; however, I have found that there is simply no need to get fancy. Your goal should be to make process of planning as easy as possible. This will make it much more likely that you will actually use the system. After trying out several different daily planners, I honestly just use my Microsoft Works calendar. Any program or calendar that gives the ability to view by month, week, and day will work.Here is an overview of the process.1) I use the monthly, weekly, and daily, view. On the first of every month I print of the monthly calendar and make sure it is coordinated with my personal obligations and wife’s calendar. Once it is good to go, I pin it up in my home office.2) Every Saturday afternoon I build my next week by filling my tasks on the weekly view. This allows me to get a good picture of my week. I schedule my time in. For me it’s four hours a day. And four hours on Saturday. This time I fiercely defend as the time I need to do my job; however, if I need to reschedule it I do.3) Every morning I print off my day on the daily view. At night I roll over any tasks or time that was unfulfilled and reschedule it for the next day. Sometimes I need to push it out a few days.I have learned that you must schedule your time and tasks in writing. My advice is to become your own boss. You can call it your inner parent and child if you wish, but either way one must develop a disciplined way of working to succeed at home. You must treat your home based job as a real job, or you will not make any money working from home. I have worked with hundreds of home based entrepreneurs over the last year, and the topic of organization and good planning regularly comes up. Using a good daily planner will help you stay focused and balance your business obligations with your personal life.