How To Organize Your Home Office

Photo Credit: Home Office Made Easy

With the spread of teleworking, especially the use of internet, cell phones, messaging services and apps and videoconferencing, there is a new range of possibilities and motivations for people to work from anywhere. Some of the benefits that you will get by working from home are spending more time with family, saving the costs of commuting, gas expenses and wear and tear of your vehicle, avoiding traffic, less distractions, work and home balance, better health and improved productivity. But there is one thing necessary for all this – a well-organized home office. So how do you do it?

The essentials of a home office are: desk, chair, filing cabinet and a bookshelf. While you should have comfortable and appealing furniture, how you position them in your office is very important. If possible,

• Place the desk so it faces the door. However, if it is a small room use a corner desk and place it near the window to have a view of the surroundings.
• For the filing cabinet and the bookshelf, label all the files and organize the books in alphabetical order on the basis of their titles or name of authors.
• Organize the drawers according to how much you need the tools inside them. This way you will reach the tools that you need quickly.

Regardless of the amount of space in your home, you are going to need more because of the anticipated expansion and increase in the amount of office items and supplies. Hence, there is a need for you to create extra space and storage, store the items logically and always take time to put things in order every day, to save the time you will use finding them. Therefore, make everything in the home office serve more than a single purpose, including furniture, bookshelves and drawers. Make your cabinet to hold supplies and divide your drawers with dividers and store items in them in a logical way. Furthermore, store extra supplies, products and stationery on the shelves and bookcases in the office. There is a place for everything, hence place everything in the office where they best fit.

Photo Credit: Flickr

Essentially, make use of ambient lighting as well as task lighting. If there is natural light hitting your home office – great. It reduces eyestrain caused by glare as well as distortion on the computer screens and books. Also, make sure you position the lights in a proper manner to ensure that there is no glare on the computer monitor.

When working from home, there is a risk of unnecessary items and things getting into your home office, things that have nothing to do with your work. Hence, get rid of such things on a regular basis and always shut down and clear off when you finish the work. It is essential that you define what you need and what you don’t need in your home office. Remove pens that no longer work and useless writing materials. Decluttering your home office helps you have more space and only contains the things that can inspire you.

An organized person working in an organized office tends to be more productive than a person working in a cluttered home office. It’s as simple as that. Organizing your office requires time, thought and creativity, but it will be worth it in the end!