How to Organize Your Home Office and Increase Your Productivity

One of the key ingredients to being productive when you work from home is having an organized home office space. But how should you organize your home office? This can be a tricky question, especially if you have been using the hit or miss method, or the “I’ll do it all at once and then have it done method.” Neither of these methods is particularly effective when trying to organize your home office. Instead experts suggest a few simple methods to get the clutter under control, and you back at your desk and being productive.

Where to Begin

Start small, perhaps 10-30 minutes each day to begin to organize your home office. Begin with the top of your desk and the piles of papers there. Then make 3 piles, one which contains papers which are important and that you must keep, one which has papers you think you might need to keep, but aren’t sure and don’t feel confident enough to throw away, and one of papers that can be thrown away. Throw away or shred the papers which you no longer need to keep. Create a file in your filing cabinet or in a box close by to put the papers you aren’t sure of. Make sure if you choose a box that it doesn’t suddenly become a recycling bin or trash can, otherwise you’ll make more work for yourself. Then take those papers which you must keep and go through them again, file anything which can be filed, and those papers which pertain to projects you are working on and which you need in quick reach should be in a file on your desk or close by so they are on hand when you need them. If you take a few minutes each day to do this you will find that it becomes easier to organize your home office, and you will be more productive as well.

The Next Step

The next step in learning to organize your home office is to clean out and organize your desk drawers. If you’re like me you have all kinds of things in your desk drawers, paperclips, extra pens and pencils, computer disks and other office supplies. However, you really shouldn’t keep office supplies in your desk if you want to effectively organize your home office. Instead empty your drawers out and then put any extra office supplies in a cupboard or on a shelf in your home office so they are easy to find. In order to keep track of all those loose paperclips, and other little doodads that you use everyday it’s a good idea to get some desk dividers. Now you don’t necessarily need to go out and buy desk dividers, although you can. Instead look around your house for small shallow boxes such as boxes your checks come in, or little gift boxes left over from Christmas. When you have several of these small boxes, line your desk drawer with them until there are no open spaces. Now you can use one box for your paperclips, another for post-its and/or anything else you like to have close. In addition, put your stapler, and tape dispenser in one of your drawers as well, this will leave you additional desk space to spread out and work on. This also helps you to not be distracted, to stay focused, and to increase your productivity.

The Final Step

Since part of learning to organize your home office is clearing away the clutter that can be so distracting and time consuming, the final step is to begin carving out larger amounts of space where everything else you might have can be organized. Like the advice at the beginning of the article I would suggest you start small. It is not necessary to go out and buy all kinds of fancy and expensive storage containers. Pick a closet or set of shelves to start. Just like with your papers make three areas and put the things which are important in one, things your not sure of in the second one, and things you can toss in the third. Then put store away accordingly in labeled containers. Keep in mind fancy containers are not the solution to being able to organize your home office, instead save your money and either collect regular boxes with lids, or shop at thrift stores for used storage containers. If you want you can use regular boxes with lids for storage, copy paper boxes are my favorite. While they don’t have the advantage of being see-through which is nice, instead you can tape a clear plastic paper holder to the side of the box with a list inside of what is in the box. That way if you empty that box out later and put other things in it, all you have to do is replace the old list with a new one rather than crossing out what you originally wrote on the box.

Using these methods it may take you a couple of months or more to completely organize your home office but in the end you will be done, and then it is just a matter of daily upkeep to stay organized. Also these methods have the added advantage of the feelings of accomplishment that you get when you complete a project you have assigned for yourself. Each time you complete a phase of your organizational plan you will know you are that much closer to having an organized home office.