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If you are fed up with your office space, have to hunt for a pen like you are on safari, and spend more time hunting for documents than working on them, this article is for you. As you forage through the “one week ago” pile, and try not to topple the whole thing into an unworkable mess, read this article for tips on how to reverse and improve your home office world.

Every home office deals with excess paper and whether you are running a small or large business, it is still something to contend with, and one that gets worth when there is no organization.

So, what do you do to wrestle the clutter-beast into submission?

Space - The Essential Ingredient

One of the largest problems with staying organized lies in the lack of a system and not having enough room to effectively implement the system.

If you organize a drawer, take everything out and replace it in the drawer but still have no space to put anything else in that drawer, you have pretty much wasted your time. The un-filed pile of papers remains and will simply grow again.

Having space to add home office furniture in the form of filing cabinets and storage bins will help considerably with organization. Be sure and have at least one quarter to one third or more growing room when you implement your system. Extra space encourages you to keep up with your organization efforts.

This also goes for items such as architectural drawings or other products or documents you may accumulate.

Purge unnecessary papers. It will allow for more space, and help you avoid scrambling through miscellaneous paperwork looking for important documents.

Simple Filing System

Do not make your system too complicated or it will be hard to follow through. Color-coding can be the easiest if you do not have too many categories. This is effective for systems, which only require ‘Income’, ‘Expense’, ‘Projects’, ‘Correspondence’, or something similar.

When filing large groups of things like clients, projects, and invoices use a single drawer for each group of files that are related. Using a four or 5-drawer filing cabinet is good in that it can be divided either alphabetically or chronologically.

For things that you use very frequently, consider getting a cork, posting or white board that you can place near your desk. This works for phone number lists, client projects and outlines, ‘To-Do’ lists and appointment calendars.

After You Set It Up, Maintenance Is Next

A system is only as good as the person using it is. If you do not keep it up, no system is useful. Starting with a smaller, simpler system of files in a cabinet near you is good. You can then take your daily or weekly items and store them in a more permanent place when you are finished.

The system will also work for stuff that you need off and on as the project you are working on progresses. Things like price lists, if you’re dealing with products, lists and articles that you need to add to a website, rewrites and the like. If you need to refer to it continuously, then you want it close.

How Do You File?

If you want to realistically keep up a filing system, labeled boxes might be a better fit. You might want to alleviate the piles of papers and sort them into boxes when you are done with them. I had a friend who invested in a really good scanner, and digitized everything, then threw the originals away. While that might be a bit excessive, it just goes to show that different filing techniques work for different people. Whatever you decide, keep it up and purge your papers occasionally and the system will work like a charm for you.

All Things Need a Place

It is an old saying, but all too true. Everything must have someplace to go back to. Avoid loose pens, pencils, papers cell phones, glasses and so on. Find a place to put them when you are finished with them, then put them back when you are done. Do not forget to reward yourself for a job well done, and keep your system going!

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