Quick Tips for an

Organized Home Office

Walking into a cluttered home office every workday can cause you to lose focus and turn the room into one you’ll instinctively start to avoid. So we're here to help you conquer your clutter, organize your home office, boost your mood, increase productivity and give your space a neater, more streamlined look!

Stick Together

Start by taking all of your office clutter and organizing it into categories by use. Put stationary in one group, pens and pencils in another, and tech extras like power cords, external battery packs and USB cords in another. Once you’ve grouped all of your office items, take a good look at what you have. Eliminate duplicate items, get rid of outdated items and evaluate the office supplies that have gone unused for any length of time (goodbye, mystery dongles). This should also make it easier to visualize the types of storage materials you need to wrangle your office into an organized state. Invest in baskets for incoming and outgoing mail, add shelving to store binders and books and buy a cabinet to stow extra office supplies.

Get Colorful 

Avoid wasting valuable time sifting through files to find the one document and reduce the odds of misfiling important paperwork by adopting a color-coded filing system. Invest in clear folders with colored labels or files in distinct color-coded categories. For example, use green folders for financial paperwork, red for medical, blue for health insurance and yellow for receipts and tax documents. Find the system that works best for you and label each folder to make it easy to find what you need.

Regularly Declutter 

Papers, mail, catalogs and other clutter often accumulate on desktops, shelves and bookcases. Set aside 15 minutes a week to go through your pile and recycle or shred your garbage, file important documents in your color-coded filing system and organize any important incoming or outgoing items as needed. Seriously, you'll surprise yourself with how much you can accomplish in just a quarter of an hour a week! By keeping up with the items that make your home office look and feel cluttered, you'll avoid overwhelming yourself with lengthy cleanup sessions, giving you more time to work and play.

Avoid Overstuffing

Practice the one-in, one-out rule to avoid office overload. Whenever you buy a new book, lamp, computer, printer or other office essential, get rid of an old one. If you regularly practice this, you’ll avoid exceeding the capacity of your home office’s storage space and you’ll be able to donate these gently used items to a local school or charity in need.

Keep Moving

Modular office furniture helps make it easier to find places to store your items, but cramped spaces might restrict your ability to add key items to your office. Invest in a few strategic pieces of furniture on wheels. By choosing wheeled office furniture, you can move it around as you reconfigure your space. You can also wheel a filing cabinet into the closet at the end of your workday or stow it under your desk to keep the floor and walkway clear.

Pick It Up

Clean up your workspace before you leave your home office every day, putting all the essentials away in your storage areas. Reserve 10 minutes at the end of your workday to clear off your desk, set yourself up for the next day and tidy up the space. Walking into an organized office gives you an immediate mood boost and helps keep you productive and happy in your home office.