If you’re looking for opportunities to increase your productivity in the new year, curating and maintaining a neat and orderly home office can be a great start. Whether you’re living in an apartment in Round Rock, TX or a home in Bellevue, WA, a space that inspires and welcomes creativity starts with cleanliness and order.
Home offices can easily become a catch-all for the rest of your home’s clutter. Next thing you know, you can’t find that bill that must be paid, or last year’s tax returns.
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Taking on the task of organizing your home office doesn’t have to be daunting, nor does it have to be completed all at once. Professional organizer Renee Brown says, “Depending on what works best for you, spend a few minutes at the end of each workday cleaning off your desk.” She recommends tasks such as “removing and putting away coffee cups, water bottles, papers, pens, etc.” With these 5 simple tips and a little effort, you can create and maintain a neat and orderly home office.
1. Create a system
Come up with a way to deal with your workflow. Get an inbox to use for incoming work, an outbox for things that have been dealt with and are to be filed or thrown away and a filing system for keeping track of it all once it leaves your desk.
Most importantly, Wendy Sauer with Organized by Wendy suggests “identifying a dedicated workspace.” She adds how this “doesn’t need to be a big space,” therefore a home office can be as simple as a nook within a larger area or a dedicated room. After designating your office space, Hayli Thorpe of Mindful Tidying says, “As much as possible, do not use that zone for any other activity besides work. Your brain will start to associate work with that spot and help you stay productive.”
Erin Kelley with hab edit, a home and life organization brand says that one way to begin organizing is “by sorting everything in your office by category (not location) such as books, papers, pens, reference materials, etc.”
2. Clean Your desk
You spend most of your time in your home office at your desk, so this is a logical place to start. Is it buried under stacks of paper, pens, business cards, or other debris? Go through it and separate everything into piles based on what you need to keep, what needs looking over later, and what needs to be thrown away (put this pile straight into the trash can).
More on perfecting your apartment office space:
How to Make a Study Space in Your Apartment
Create an Efficient Study Space in Your Apartment
How to Create a Job-Searching Space at Home
Organizing Your Home Office
3. Get a filing cabinet
A four-drawer file cabinet is useful for storing last year’s tax returns, client info and other things you need to get to that would be in your way if it was piled on your desk.
Caroline Mejia with Excuse the Mess shares how, “It is important to find a good filing system to organize your important documents and papers. The good news is there is a way to do this without taking up too much space.” She recommends “using a small filing bin or box with hanging dividers to create broad categories.”
If a filing cabinet isn’t your style or you don’t have enough space, Ashley Hinzman, professional organizer and owner of The Life Less Cluttered suggests, “Use a 3-tier cart to store your work supplies. At the end of the day, you can put all your work belongings on the cart and move it out of the area.”
4. Make use of vertical space
It’s easy to think about only the space at eye level or below. Sure a desk and a filing cabinet are everyday essentials when it comes to creating a home office, however, vertical space can be integral for organization.
Shealyn Milesh, owner of professional organizing service Goose & Gosling says, “For small office spaces, maximizing vertical space is key. Install shelves above your desk to store office supplies, reference books, and important files.” Other options for vertical home office organizing includes, “wall-mounted calendars, Kanban boards, and tools like file holders and pen organizers.”
Morgan Luke with Sorting for Serenity recommends installing “a pegboard to organize supplies vertically,” and calls them “perfect for keeping tools and inspiration within arms reach.”
5. Invest in dual-purpose furniture
Don’t underestimate the power of dual-purpose furniture. Long are the days of thinking something can’t be functional and appealing to the eye. Founder of Sorted by Snow, Zoë Snow says “Focus on implementing dual-purpose furniture, such as a desk with built-in storage or a foldable wall-mounted desk that can be tucked away when not in use.”
Minimalistic desks without storage are great for keeping your spacy tidy. However, if you lack storage in other areas, Natalia, founder of The Casual Factotum recommends “opting for a compact desk with drawers on one side to create storage without taking up extra room, and make use of the space beneath it.”
6. Cut the cords
When you’re organizing your home office for the year ahead, ditch the mess of cords. Emily Mazur, owner of Revitalize Home Organization says, “If you have a lot of cords around the floor or hanging off your desk, try using cord organizers and/or a cable management box to hide them.” Alternatively, explore wireless accessories such as a keyboard, mouse, or printer.
7. Keep your essentials close by
Not everything needs to be right at your fingertips in your home office. Ensuring that your workspace is free of clutter is crucial to your productivity. However, Taylor O’Loughlin with Proper Place Organizing shares, “Think about your workflow; what is essential to your everyday work life that you need to keep close by.” These items can be anything from a pen to a notebook. But remember, essentials are usually used regularly (and we all may have varying essentials based on the job).
When it comes to “less essential” items or backstock, Tabi Berkey, owner of Organization Pending says, “Creating one zone for all office backstock supplies also helps create a streamlined process for keeping common supplies stocked, and for knowing where to look when you need refills.”
8. When in doubt, throw it out
Be honest. If that catalog that’s been on your desk since October is still there, you’re probably not going to order anything from it. Throw it away. If there is anything you have acted on but are required to keep, file it. And if you have hard copies of anything that you can access readily online, toss it.
An orderly office doesn’t stop at what you can physically touch. Kelley Herrod with Ideal Organization shares how you can even have too many emails that need sorting. Inboxes tend to pile up therefore Kelley suggests either, “trashing it, acting on it, or filing it.”
The hard work of sorting through your belongings is completed. Now, Dawn Toumbs with Pride Cleaning Services recommends “keeping supplies to a minimum.” Therefore you’ll want to avoid bringing clutter back into your space. She says, “Clutterclutter creates chaos,” and recommends taking “one day a week to clean and dust your workspace.”