Blog Simple Tips to Get & Keep your Home Office Organized

Simple Tips to Get & Keep your Home Office Organized

01/18/2016

Whether you work from home full time or part time, having an organized home office space is one key to success and keeping your sanity in your small business. Here are a few simple tips to get and to keep your home office organized. Be sure to grab your FREE Printable Home Office Organization Checklist at the end of this post before you leave too!

5 Simple Tips to Organize Your Home Office

1. Use Shelving Units, Bookcases, Pull Out Drawer Bins, Totes and Boxes to create a place for everything. . Shelving units, bookcases & cube organizers are a simple, effective and affordable way to organize your home office. You can use the cube organizers or even garage shelving units. This will help use all that empty wall space, keep items off the floor and give you easy access to all your files, papers and products.

I also love the Clear Plastic Pull Out Drawer Bins for organizing my office supplies, papers, files and business materials. I prefer this to stacking items & papers in boxes or containers. This gives quick and easy access to the particular item that you need. Totes and boxes work great for larger items or extra supplies you may not need access to as often. Put the items you do not need or use as often on the top and bottom shelves and the items you use the most at the easiest access point.

2. Use 3 Ring Binders, File Folders, File Drawers & Sorters for all your papers & files. I have multiple 3-ring binders that I use with pocket folders and sheet protectors to organize all the paper files and documents I use in my business. They make it easy to find what you need, keep everything in the right place and take on the go with you to other rooms in your home or in your mobile office bag or tote bag when travelling or working away from home. You can eliminate the piles or stacks of papers laying around and having to dig through them to find what you need when everything is sorted in 3 ring binders, file folders or sorters.

3. Label Everything. It is great to have a place for every item but if you do not label the outside of the drawer, bin or container, you will waste time finding those items. Having everything labeled will help you quickly and easily label all containers, file folders, packets and business supplies. I love my Brother P-Touch Label Machine. It helps me save so much time by being able to quickly label everything as I am working.

4. Have a “To File” or “To Put Away” Basket or Bin. Have a to file basket or bin that you can easily drop items and papers in that need to be filed. This will help you from getting stacks of paper and miscellaneous items all over your desk or work area. Be sure to check this file at the end of each day or week and put things away.

5. Take some time each week to organize, file and toss anything you have added during the week. This is a very important step to keeping your office organized. Schedule 15-30 minutes in your planner for office organization time each week for this. Any papers that have not been filed or taken care of, file them or move them to your tasks to complete so you can follow up on them next week. If you need to throw away anything that is completed or not of use, toss it. Take stock of your office supplies and see if there is anything you are running low on or out of so you can re-order it. If you need to make more materials or packets for your business, take care of that during this time too.

Being organized not only helps you work more efficiently and accomplish more in less time, it also helps keep your stress level lower. It’s not about having everything perfect or looking like something Martha Stewart might have created, it’s simply about making your space functional and having the least amount of clutter possible.

Spend a little time upfront implementing systems and organizing you can save a ton of time in the future. Be sure to commit to a few minutes of office clean up & re-sorting each week too.

What about you? Do you have any tips for home office organization or did you learn something helpful in this post? I would love it if you would leave a comment below and share this on social media. Thank you!