By Jennifer Lutz
One great way to kick off the year is to organize your work space. This is especially important for people who work from home. As many of us know, a clean workspace is key to having an uncluttered mind and a great way to foster productivity. To help you with this seemingly daunting task, here are seven helpful tips to prepare your home office for a productive year ahead.
1. Remove desktop clutter.
2. Manage your cables or go wireless.
You can also go wireless. Purchase a new keyboard, a mouse, or even one of these Bluetooth printers, all of which are readily available at retailers that sell computer equipment. This guarantees a cleaner and much more pleasant working space.
3. Dispose of trash.
When you work from home, clutter and even trash can pile up. Take a few minutes to survey your home office and determine what you’re no longer using. Dispose of pens that no longer work, paper clips that are already unusable, and empty print cartridges. Remove Internet printouts, old newspapers, and back issues of magazines. Broken office equipment should also be thrown out as well.
It’s also a good time to go through your papers. Throw away outdated documents. This includes medical bills, bank and credit card statements, and receipts that are already two years old. There’s really no point in keeping them.
4. Sort and file important documents.
Stacking documents or inserting them inside a folder is an easy solution during particularly busy weeks, but it can be a problem in the near future. Looking for specific documents can be a real waste of precious time. At the start of the year, sort out all your documents. Get a metal filing cabinet and organize your files alphabetically for easy access.
An alternative way of organizing documents these days is to install a pigeonhole system, allowing you to arrange your files by subject or by category. For a cheaper solution, you can also purchase stackable boxes and allot a container per category.
5. Install additional shelves for books and bound documents.
6. Work on your computer’s filing system.
Aside from physical documents, many of us also have digital clutter. In this day and age, almost everything we do is in the computer, so cleaning out your hard drive is part of the office organizing process. Look through your files and see what documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and images you can delete. It’s also a great time to label them appropriately and sort them in various folders. While you’re at it, clear your browsing history and cache, too. And of course, don’t forget to back your system up!
7. Have a storage system for office supplies.
With these easy organizing tips, your office is well-prepared to take on the challenges of the new working year.
Jennifer Lutz writes about home décor at blog.christmastreemarket.com.