A home office almost always trumps a company cubicle, but not if your home office becomes a giant mountain of random documents, laundry, and children’s toys. To give yourself the best chance of productivity, you have to keep your home office organized.
Set Boundaries
First, you have to establish ground rules for your home office. Explain to your children and significant other that the home office is an office, not an extra room for tasks or storage. This means black listing certain things, such as the unfolded laundry. Of course, the stray child’s toy or dog bone is likely to find its way in at some point, so end each home work day with a quick clean up. This way you can wake up to a clean office every morning.
Clean Desk, Clean Office
An important part of an organized office is a clean, organized desk. Your desk is the focal point of your office. It is where you do the majority of your work, and therefore it sets the tone for the entire room. If your desk is a disheveled mess, it’s only a matter of time until the whole office is as well. There are four easy ways to maintain control.
- Keep your desk clear of unnecessary items.
- Throw away trash, instead of letting it sit in on the corner of the desk.
- Only take out the things you need at the moment, and put them away when you’re done.
- Don’t place several decorative items on your desk. They take up space that you need for your work. Place them on wall shelves or next to a small couch on a coffee table instead.
A Place for Everything
In addition to limiting your home office’s purpose, create a place for everything. When every office supply, document, and gadget has a place, your home office stays neat and organized. It also makes it much easier for you to find everything quickly and easily.
- Try to group like items and items that are used in conjunction with each other.
- Invest in storage, like file cabinets, to hold all of your documents. You can find office furniture that doubles as a file cabinet and still looks nice in your office.
- Don’t forget to get dividers for your file cabinets. It’s hard to find specific documents when all of your papers are mixed together.
- If you have several books or notebooks that you need or want in your office, use a bookcase to make them visible and easily accessible. A full bookshelf is also a great way to decorate your office in a functional way.
Have a Visible Calendar
This tidbit of advice works for keeping your life organized as well as your home office. A visible calendar allows you to see what you have coming up for work, and encourages you to be productive with your time at home. You can hang a monthly or weekly calendar, or even use a day planner. Just make sure it is either visible or close at hand.
Be an Organized Over-Achiever
If you want to really go the extra mile, try your hand at color-coding and labeling parts of your office. You can color code various types of documents or books to make it easy to spot related items, and you can label the drawers of your file cabinets so you know which drawer holds what without opening a single one. You should also label any folder you have in your office. It can also be very useful to organize documents in sequential order. For example, filing bills you need to pay based on the order they are all due, or storing work projects according to what needs to be done first.
