10 Tips to Organize Your Home Office

More and more people are working at home these days. If you’re one of them, then here are ten tips that can help you make your home office as organized and efficient as possible:

1. Remove all unnecessary furnishings from your workspace. Just because you’re working at home doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have a clean and uncluttered area in which to do your job. A room designated as your office is ideal, but if that’s not possible, you can still create an efficient work area in most any area of your home with the right desk. Choose a model with lots of drawers and cabinets to ensure you’ve got room for all your things.

2. Implement a filing system for all work papers. Some people choose to sort their papers by alphabetical order, while others use a chronological method. Either way can work if you label your files properly and actually use them!

3. Keep a basket or box near your workspace in which to collect household clutter that finds its way into your office. After you’re done working for the day, load all unnecessary items into the box or basket and put them in the area of the house where they belong.

4. Try a space saving office machine like a printer that scans, copies and faxes. There are some great models on the market today that are streamlined, affordable, and efficient!

5. Create two piles for all incoming mail. One pile should be labeled urgent. The urgent mail you should open and deal with immediately. The other pile can wait until you have the time to deal with it, pending it doesn’t get too big! Any mail that doesn’t go in one of the piles should be thrown away.

6. Keep your email under control. Twice daily, take a few minutes and go through the day’s mail.  Answer urgent emails right away. Save only the emails that you know you’re going to need to refer to later. Designate a digital folder for these items and don’t leave them in your inbox. Delete everything else!

7. If you’ve got a lot of wires in your home office, use a cord organizer to keep them separated and detangled. These handy implements can be purchased at most every home supply store.

8. Do a thorough cleaning of your office area once a week. Dump your wastebasket, go through all accumulated papers, and mercilessly toss anything that’s not absolutely necessary.

9. Store all your appointments, phone numbers and addresses using a computer program. You can print out your schedule for each day and easily locate information you need quickly without having to shuffle through papers.

10. Remove everything from your desk except the project you’re currently working on. This saves clutter and keeps you from getting distracted by other things.