Robbie Bell, a radio personality who cohosts the Join Us at the Table food program with The Miami Herald's Nancy Ancrum on station WKAT-1360 AM, has this advice for people planning to work from a home office: "Control the paper."

"I try to be paperless, but if you don't stay on top of it, things get away from you," the Miami resident has found. "When you keep putting things on top of your desk, you feel overwhelmed. The next lion I'm going to conquer is organizing my business cards."

Janel Agyeman, a literary agent in Miami, shares this tip with people planning to set up a home office: "It seems so obvious, but you should have basic organizing supplies at the ready. I didn't even have file folders or labels to put on them when I started working at home. Now I keep a supply of things like cartridges so I don't have to run to the store all the time."

If you run a business from home, you may need a license. Marie Esquivel, tax collector manager in the Miami-Dade Tax Collector's Office, advises checking your municipality or county zoning ordinances before starting a business at home. Zoning and licensing rules vary from city to city and county to county.

"Operating a one-person business from home is usually not a problem, but if you are having employees wandering in and out, or your business causes traffic or parking problems, then you may not be able to work from home," Esquivel explains.

Cassandra Terpening, supervisor of revenue collection for the Broward County Tax Collection Agency, advises to "make sure you have city approval'' before setting up a business at home.

"An eBay seller may not be much of a problem, but cities don't want a lot of foot traffic," Terpening said. "It's a zoning issue with cities. The only time the county gets involved is in nonincorporated areas in which a certificate of use would be required."

Join the discussion

The Miami Herald is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. In order to post comments, you must be a registered user of MiamiHerald.com. Your username will show along with the comments you post. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.

     Showing: Oldest first Newest first Most-recommended first Least-recommended first

@Nyx.AuthorDisplayName@ wrote on @Nyx.PostedAtTime@:

@Nyx.repliedToText@

@Nyx.replyAnswerText@

Reply to this Comment @Nyx.Recommender@ @Nyx.AbuseReporter@