Achieving an orderly home office

Messy home office?

Use of a home office is very popular among entrepreneurs, mompreneurs and small businesses. Having an office in your home saves commuting time and paying for office space. At the same time, it can be difficult to separate the office from the home.

You may have to share your office space either with someone else, like your kids doing their homework. The spot may be used for multiple purposes, as a spare bedroom or craft room. If this is the case, it is even more important to have a system of organizing your office.

Train yourself to get organized

Start with good organizing habits. Have a to-do list for each day at your desk and stick to it. Get used to the routine and things will get easier as you go along. Before you know it, organizing will become second nature.

A to-do list example may be:

• Presort mail (open paper mail by recycle box and recycle what you do not need on the spot)
• If it is something you need to save – file it, save it to a designated spot to read later or respond to it
• Prioritize work projects
• Begin working on the most important task

Use storage boxes to store completed files, or even better, scan old files and save them digitally. Then shred and recycle the paper copies. Don’t overcomplicate the system. Make it as easy as possible so you can find old files when you need them.

Cloud storage is great for saving a large amount of data without using up all of the hard drive space on your computer. You can access the information from any computer from the cloud.

Files

Is it easy to file papers? Or, do you get paper cuts every time you go into a drawer? Overstuffed files or cabinets make searching more difficult.

Go through files and remove, scan and recycle or shred old papers. If you don’t need to save a copy, there is no need to scan them.

Try your best to keep the desk clear of anything except your current project. Create an organizing system that works for you as a work project ends. Either file it away or scan and shred. Design a system that makes sense to you depending upon what needs to be saved for tax purposes.

At the end of the day, your desk will be empty so you can start fresh the next morning. If it’s not possible to clear off your desk each day, definitely do it at the end of each week.

Once your home office space is well organized, continue the process each day. At the end of every workday you can feel proud that you have completed this task. If organizing your office is more than you can handle, contact me and I can help.