An Organized Home Office is a More Efficient Home Office

It doesn’t matter if you are already working from home or whether you are in the process of finding a way to work from home, you need a home office or a portion of your home dedicated to a home office. Not only is this beneficial in helping you be successful, it also makes you look more professional, will help in organization and it can even be a tax write off.

What type of office is needed? It’s going to depend on what type of business you have. If you need to have client meetings you’ll need to make sure you that your office has room to accommodate client meetings. If you are running a business based solely on the internet/online then you probably won’t need as much space because more than likely you won’t be holding client meetings. If you are running a business that requires you to have inventory then you’ll obviously need to have room to keep that.

You’ll want to remove anything that isn’t related to your business from the room (unless it’s a multi-purpose room). The less distractions you have, the easier it will be for you to focus and stay on track and it will also help keep the area less cluttered. Use boxes or storage containers to store items and move them to another room.

You’ll need to also have a filing system. You can use a filing cabinet or hanging folders. Sort through your papers and decide what you need to keep and what can be tossed. If you aren’t sure about something, set up another box and put the questionable papers in there. You can look at them later and decide what to do with them then. Establishing a filing system is the easy part; keeping up with it on a daily basis is the hard part. It’s important to keep up on it because if you don’t it’s too easy to become overwhelmed.

Your workspace is usually the hardest area to keep organized but if you stay on top of the paperwork that is one area that will help reduce clutter. You also need to make sure that your workspace is comfortable. You’ll increase productivity if you have a comfortable workspace.

Desk organizers are not only decorative but they help keep things out of the way but at the same time, close at hand. Make sure that you only keep often used items on the desktop; this will also help keep clutter at bay. Anything else that isn’t used on a regular basis can be stored in your desk drawers, on a shelf or a desk drawer organizer.

If you’ll be using a computer, which is probably highly likely, make sure you have enough room to hold everything. You’ll need room for the computer, the monitor, printer and any other hardware you may need (printers, fax machines, etc). If you are limited on space you can always use a multi-purpose unit. Many companies make units that are all in one machines now-a-days (printer, scanner, fax all in one machine, etc) and those take up a lot less room.

If you don’t keep your computer itself organized things can get a bit overwhelming and out of hand. Check into purchasing some organizational software that will allow you to keep track of work, appointments, clients, etc. This will not only help you be a bit more organized, it will also help you not waste so much time.