5 Steps To Start Organizing Your Home Office

Please welcome The Inspired Room’s guest blogger here today to give us some quick tips on Home Office Organization:

WELCOME Brandie Kajino, “The Home Office Organizer”!

March 11 is “Organize Your Home Office Day”, and tax season is in full swing in America. Did you know that paper consumption has tripled since the widespread use of the computer? (I think we are a long way off from a “paperless society”!) Did you also know that 48 million Americans work from home (and those in the know expect this number to increase drastically in the next 20 years)? If you add in those who handle family business or have a creative space in our homes, there are a lot of us out there with a PC, filing cabinet and tools we use in a home office.

Would you like a home office that enables you to find what you need in five minutes or less? Is your paper driving you crazy? If you answered “yes” to either of these questions, know that there is hope for you to get control of the paper flooding your home office. So, how would you go about doing that? I’ve compiled some tips and resources to get you headed in the right direction.

1. Sort the mail, everyday: Ugh, I know…. But, it might be easier than you think. By “Sort”, I mean just that. You’re just determining how long it will take you to deal with each piece of mail and what category it goes into. It should only take you a minute to do this. All you need is two baskets, file folders or large envelopes.

2. “To Do”: This category is anything that takes more than two minutes of your time. Bills, calls to be made, responses to write, etc. If you need the information to “do” something, it goes in this category.

3. “To Read”: This category is for things you need to read over, like a magazine, conference or event brochure, etc. Again, if it takes more than two minutes to read over, put it in here.

4. Recycle, reduce, reuse: Do you really need coupons for a dog wash, extra large pizza or a cheaply made necklace? Determine what your needs are, and recycle the rest. A lot of what we get in the mail is marketing materials we don’t need. Watch the paper that comes into your home, lest it congregate in corners and multiply!

Bonus Reuse Tip: If you have a newspaper delivered, consider using it as a weed barrier in your garden. Newspapers now use soy ink, so it won’t harm your garden. I have found 4-5 layers of newspaper work better than the expensive weed paper at the garden store!

5. Resources: This is a short list of things you might like to get started on your home office. Pick the medium that you like best.

Brain Type Quiz: Want to learn more about organizing and what will work for you? Try this fun quiz: “What’s Your Brain Type” Quiz: http://organizedworld.com/quiz.html

Books: (You can find these on my website on the Products or Good Books pages)

“Organizing For Your Brain Type” by Lanna Nakone
“Zen To Done” by Leo Babauta
“Guide To Organizing Your Office” by Ariane Benefit
“101 Tips For Your Home Office E-Booklet” by Brandie Kajino

Website articles: LifeHacker as an entire section about Home Offices:
http://lifehacker.com/tag/home-office/

Teleclass: You can also take one of my teleclasses: http://www.thehomeofficeorganizer.com/teleclasses/

Some other articles on The Inspired Room:

Order Before Beauty

Style Tips: Quick Ideas For Refining Your Style

The Home Office Saga

Exciting Plans

This post, Steps to Start Organizing Your Home Office, was mentioned here:

THE WASHINGTON POST Blog Watch: The Inspired Room

Phew! Do you have resources you like? Please share them here! Also, if you have a question, feel free to post and I’ll keep up with the comments. I wish you all the best organizing your home office!

About the author
Brandie Kajino, The Home Office Organizer, is a dynamic speaker, author and professional organizer. Brandie organizes home offices for home-based professionals. Her website offers resources, articles, services and a blog to help home office professionals get organized, be more productive and simplify life. Visit her web site at www.thehomeofficeorganizer.com.

(Photo from PotteryBarn.com)