10 Tips to Organize
Your Home Office
by Wendy Paris
Monster Contributing Writer
In
today's turbo-charged work environment, excellent organization can mean the
difference between seizing a career opportunity and watching it fly by. A
well-organized work space also means efficient invoicing, expensing and
follow-up, which translates into dollars in your pocket -- or out the window.
For home-based businesses, organization is doubly important. A good system can
help set boundaries between home life and work life, giving more time to
actually enjoy the freedom of being your own boss.
Julie
Morgenstern, author of Organizing from the Inside Out and founder of Task
Masters, a professional organizing service based in
She
offers tips to organize your home office:
1.
Plan Before You Pounce
Skip
that trip to Staples. Before loading up on nifty organizational devices, you
have to figure out what goes where, what you're
keeping and what you're throwing out. "Analyze, strategize, then attack."
2.
Set Aside Sufficient Time
Most
offices take three days to completely overhaul. You're not just clearing
clutter; you're also establishing your priorities. "Organizing is about
identifying what's important to you and giving yourself access to it,"
Morgenstern explains.
3.
Assess Your Location
Before
you start organizing, make sure your office is in the right place. You're going
to spend most of the day here. Don't banish yourself to a room you don't like.
"Often, people plan to put their office in a spare bedroom they never
use," Julie says. "Except they hate that dark,
isolated room and wind up doing all their work on the dining room table."
If you like working in the dining room, put your office there. You'll find
creative ways to organize your things -- such as putting containers in the
credenza -- to free up the table for dinner.
4.
Use Morgenstern's Kindergarten Classroom Model
Once
you've established your office area, divide it like a kindergarten classroom
into activity zones. Each zone has everything needed for that activity. In
kindergarten, zones are arts and crafts, music and reading. What are your main
activities? Client contact, research, writing and mailing
assembly? Divide your office into these four task areas and put
everything related to each task in its own zone.
5.
Organize for Retrieval, Not Storage
When
deciding where to put specific items in each activity zone, focus on finding
them, not storing them. Ask yourself, "Under what circumstance would I be
looking for this?" and "Where would I go to look for this in the
future?" not, "What box would this fit in?"
6.
Create a User-Friendly Filing System
Take
the kindergarten approach to filing too. Ditch that old A-Z system. It tends to
separate related materials, putting accounting under "A," financial
plan under "F" and tax records under "T." Instead, create
separate filing drawers or areas for the categories of your home business:
finances, clients, administrative and marketing, for example. Put all related
files in the appropriate drawer in alphabetical order, if you wish.
7.
Customize to Fit the Way You Think
There
is no correct organizational system. Your system needs to make sense to you.
"Once I was working with a woman who was a very successful storyteller, a
very creative person," Morgenstern says. "She had one drawer in which
she kept the names of places where she spoke or might speak. I said, 'Oh,
that's your marketing drawer.' She said, 'Oh no! I hate marketing.' She
preferred to think of it as sharing her stories with the world. We decided to
call the drawer, 'Sharing It with the World.' That worked for her. Sharing
really motivated and inspired her."
8.
Complete One Section at a Time
That
coffee cup on your desk belongs in the kitchen. You bring it to the kitchen and
realize you need to organize your spice rack. Don't do this. Focus on one room
at time. Within that room, complete one section before moving to the next. You
need to see results to feel inspired enough to continue.
9.
Don't Quit
Organizing
is such a huge task, people often quit before finishing. Invariably, those
remaining little piles of clutter take over the office, reducing it to chaos
again.
Plan
strategies ahead of time to keep yourself motivated.
Write a list of reasons to get organized and post it where you can see it. Take
before and after photos of your space to track your progress. Work with a buddy
who will keep you inspired and serve as a sounding board. For your new system
to stick, you need to see it through to the end. Reward yourself at each stage
of the process.
10.
Organize Time to Get out in the World
The
goal of all this planning is not only to have a successful business, but also
to enjoy a fulfilling life. Make sure to plan time to get out of your fabulous
new office and into the world, too.