6 Steps to Organize Your Home Office

Home office organization is one thing that most of us do not usually think about until it is too late. You need a personal corner at home, so you create one. And over time, you work in that area, your home office, where all your things are stacked and layered around you – used coffee mugs (with days old coffee), a stack of files you keep meaning to put away somewhere, software boxes and CD cases, orphaned pens – until one day, when something gets in your way or gets lost amid the pile that you suddenly realize that you need some home office organization done.

A full and complete home office organization is a big job. Most of the time, it tends to be overwhelming at first look (and sometimes until the second and third). But if you really feel up for it, organizing your home office will lead you to a 12-step plan to make your work area functional and attractive again. But if you are not quite ready yet for a total makeover but desperately need a home office organization done, here are a few small manageable things that you can do to organize your home office right now.All that is required is about 15 minutes of your time.

1.    Get Rid of That Pile of "Stuff"

Let us start with something easy, just enough to get you in the mood and clear up some space. If you're staring at a big pile don't lose hope. Take a deep breath and start out by picking up three to five things that you don't need and throw them out. There is probably a lot more than just three items either on your desk , around it or under it that can go from your work area right to the trash can.

2. Take Out Those Old Papers

I'm sure there tons of newspapers, magazines and papers that have no business being in your office. Ask yourself this question do you really need them? The short answer is no plain and simple, well unless you have valuable information if so they should be stored elsewhere. If you're not sure if you're going to use them create a two step trash system. Leave the papers in step one and forget about them. If time passes and you never touched them guess what move to step two — total annihilation of what is now considered TRASH.

3.    Empty One Filing Drawer

Filing cabinets are the rulers of clutter for most home offices, which is ironic because we often see them as clutter solutions. In reality though, all we do is stuff them with whatever we can not find a place for, or whatever piece of paper we do not need to deal with anymore but just can’t have the guts to throw away. So our filing cabinets become our own secret landfill and when it is full, we just move in another one.

Documents and papers that you no longer need should also be shredded. This way, you may be able to reuse old file folders for current (and more important) files.

4.    Organize Your Desk Drawers.

Drawers are likely to become a dumping ground anyhow, but in a home office, there are such a lot of things that you can dump in them, so your desk drawers become disastrous. Organize your home office by picking one desk drawer and taking everything out of it.

Sort through the contents, throw out whatever is no longer of use and move whatever is misplaced back to its better location. Also, insert a neat organizer tray (available in any office supply store) and put things back into the drawer, using the different sections of the organizer tray so that your things are kept properly separated and become more easy to find.

5. Keep Frequently Used Items In Close Reach

Think about the items you use constantly. Items like pens, calculators, notepads and phones are things you may use habitually in your office. So keep them close to you. Make sure you do not keep too many things close to you.

6. Do not Mix Pleasure and Business

Don't keep personal items where they can distract you. Mixing business and personal work is very distracting and should be avoided at all cost. Remember the purpose of your office so keep things like catalogs, kids stuff and other things that do not belong, away from your home office.

You may not have time to do all this in one sitting so set a period of 15 minutes and do this until your home office is finally organized. Do not forget to maintain the order in your office.

Here's a video to give you more tips:

Related Iinks:

• 6 Easy Steps To A Productive And Organized Home Office. | Simple … – Home office organization will be a breeze if you toss, file, or act on those papers immediately. Use this strategy to tackle the paper piles and then any paper that enters your office after you get it organized. …

• DVD Cabinets journal post that anyone should see – Planning – Make a list of your biggest home office organization problems. Do you have piles of papers that need to be sorted, trashed, or filed? Do you have general garbage surrounding you (such as drink bottles, old magazines, etc.)? …

Hope you found this useful.