How do I prove my home office is my principal place of business for tax?

[JosephR]

My daily plans constantly get derailed by urgent issues and changing priorities. I need daily planning software that can help me adapt rather than just creating rigid schedules that never work out. What daily planning software have you found that handles flexibility well? I need something that helps me prioritize and reprioritize throughout the day.

[IsabellaG]

I use Sunsama for daily planning and it handles changing priorities beautifully. It pulls tasks from multiple sources (Todoist, Google Calendar, etc.) and lets you plan your day visually. When priorities shift, you can easily drag tasks to different time slots or move them to another day. The daily review feature helps with reprioritization.

[Samuel32]

For adaptive planning, I use a combination of Google Calendar for time blocking and Todoist for tasks. What makes it work is that I keep my task list separate from my schedule. When priorities change, I adjust my time blocks in Calendar and reprioritize in Todoist. The separation gives me flexibility without losing structure.

[GraceJ]

I use Notion for daily planning with a flexible template I created. It has sections for today's priorities, urgent items, and a backlog. When things change, I can easily move items between sections. The database functionality lets me tag tasks by priority and energy level, which helps with adaptive planning throughout the day.

[Jack_S]

I just got a notice that my home office deduction is being questioned because my "principal place of business" isn't clearly established to their satisfaction. I work remotely full-time for a company in another state, but I also have to visit clients locally a few times a month. I'm not sure how to prove my home office is my main work location for tax purposes when I have these occasional local meetings.

[Logan_C]

I have been in that spot where the notice comes and you feel exposed. I kept a rough log of what I did at home versus on the road and it helped me see where the bulk of work happened. My admin work lived at home most weeks even when I met clients after hours.

[Tyler33]

The phrase principal place of business is a real standard used by the IRS to decide where you do the core work. If most of your business tasks like scheduling invoicing and record keeping happen at home, that helps. Meetings with clients are allowed at another location but you still need to show the home is the main place.

[Sophia.L]

The local client meetings do complicate things and some months there are more of those than work at home.

[Evelyn_S]

I wondered if a dedicated space at home was really enough and I ended up making a little notebook for time spent at home.

[ZacharyM]

One concrete action I took was to set a fixed home office area and to keep receipts and a simple time log.

[Zachary_H]

Maybe the real issue is not the rules but whether you are applying the rules correctly or if the job structure means you are not eligible at all.