Organizing Your Home Office: 10 Tips to Help You Focus on Work Rather Than Clutter

(Part II of a two-part series)

Last week, (The Home Office Organization - Part I) we discussed five ways to organize your home office so you can be more productive as you focus on your work rather than your work environment:

1. Optimize your work space
2. Make sure your furniture arrangement is work-friendly
3. Put all office supplies in the office
4. Don’t mix too much “home” with your office
5. Install shelving

Here are the remaining five tips to help you clear up your office space and, perhaps while you’re at it, find some peace of mind.

6. Consider using a white board or bulletin board
Use your wall space well. If you have any space after installing your shelving, consider using a white board or a bulletin board; they can help you organize your thoughts and maybe a few odd and ends. Although a word of caution is in order here: if you don’t think you would use them effectively, then don’t use them at all. Oftentimes, a bulletin board becomes a display of all the stuff we’re too afraid to throw in the garbage while a white board goes unused.

7. Sort all your paper piles
If you’re like most people, you have a stack of papers cluttering your desk top. These piles encroach upon your work space and make it difficult to actually do your work. Sort these piles and file what needs to be filed, archive what needs to be archived, and toss what needs to be tossed.

8. Create a filing system and follow it
Next week we’ll talk about filing systems in more detail, but until then, it’s important to establish a system and follow it. There are different ways to arrange your files, but haphazardly is not one of them. Be sure that your client files are arranged so that you can access them quickly and find what you need within the files.

9. Keep important work information at close-range
How much time do you waste hunting for something that you need just about every day? (Even if it is the waste basket or the stapler). That’s time that you could be spending on billable hours. Unless you charge your clients for “hunting and pecking,” than that time is “overhead,” and you pay for that yourself.

10. Don’t be afraid to throw things away
After you’ve established the “toss pile” (see number 7), don’t be afraid to actually throw those things away. You may be worried that once you throw something out you’ll need it days later. If that concerns you, than create a “things I just might need later” file. Put them away so that it’s off your desk, and then if that moment does arrive you can sort through that all-important file. (Just remember to go through that file periodically and throw away all those things you didn’t find a need for).

Sometimes the things that keep you from doing your work are piling up around your office. If organizing your work space is overwhelming, than just focus one hour of your work day on cleaning up and putting things where they belong. When the hour’s up, you can focus on your work. If you do that every day, you’ll soon find that your office space is more appealing and conducive to your job. Because, what’s a home office for if you can’t actually get your work done while you’re in it?

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