Tips for Organizing Your Office

Using these tips for organizing your office you will become:

• more organized
• more focused
• more productive

The reasons are simple...

When things are organized you can find what you need easily.

When you can find what you need easily you waste less time.

When you stop wasting time you become more productive.

Whether you work from home or not, these tips will help you get more organized on the job.

Tips for Organizing Your Office
Organize Your Home Office

Home office organization presents a unique set of challenges. Clutter from the rest of your house can sneak into your office and you can become distracted by other household activities.

If you work from home, you need to set some ground rules.

Establish your working hours. Choose a time frame during which you will work each day. Try to keep this consistent, the way it would be if you worked away from home. By creating a schedule, you will make it easier for the rest of your family to respect your working hours.

Encourage respect of your schedule. Once you have established your work schedule, discourage interruptions while you are working. Develop a code to help remind younger children when you are not to be disturbed. Choose something easy for them to recognize like shutting the office door or setting an alarm clock.

Establish quiet time while you are working. If you have young children there are some things you can do to keep them entertained for a short period while you get some work done.

• Put some chairs and a bookshelf in your office and allow your kids to sit in there with you and read quietly while you work.

• Provide puzzles or board games for them to play.

• Make work time for you fun for them. Make your kids some popcorn and pop in one of their favorite movies as a special treat.

• Spend lots of time interacting with your children prior to quiet time. Encourage them to respect quiet time and make sure they understand that you would love to give them lots of attention, but only when quiet time is over.

Keep Your Home Office Clutter-Free

Your home office is not a catch-all. Everything in your house needs a home and, when not being used, should be in it's home not in your office.

Determine what you will use your home office for and follow these tips for organizing your office accordingly.

• Do you run a business out of your home?
• Do you need to be able to meet with clients?
• Do you use your home office to maintain the family's records and finances?
• Will other family members need to use your office?

Be sure you have adequate storage space for the supplies and materials you need based on your home office use. Everything that needs to be kept in your home office should have a designated home. Again, keep frequency of use in mind when you are finding a home for your supplies and merchandise.

How to Organize Office Files

Whether your files are limited to your family's important papers or include extensive work-related documentation, they should be maintained in an orderly manner. A file cabinet with labeled folders kept in alphabetically order is usually a safe bet to keep all of your paperwork organized.

Following these tips for organizing your office will help to ensure that you are as efficient as possible in your home office.

Tips for Organizing Your Office
Creating The Right Systems

Whether you work at home or away, having the right systems to keep up with your job responsibilities is vital to staying organized at work.

Write it Down

The simplest thing that you can do to keep yourself organized at work is to keep a constant to-do list. Keep a notepad with you at all times. Whenever a new project comes up, add it to your list. As you complete projects, cross them off your list.

At the end of every day, take 15 minutes to re-prioritize your to-do list to prepare for the next day. Start with a fresh page and transfer the outstanding items leftover from today's list, in order of priority, to a new list that you can use to start tomorrow.

Create a Simple Schedule

If you have a hard time staying on task a simple schedule is the perfect solution. Think about how you would like to schedule your time during an ideal day with no interruptions. Write this schedule down and post it where it will be visible to you throughout the day.

Don't expect to strictly adhere to this schedule because most days are not ideal and will come with their fair share of interruptions. The point is that having this schedule as a guideline will help get you back on track more quickly after an interruption. When you are ready to get back on track, just take a look at your schedule and pick up where you left off.

Create a Follow-Up System

A simple way to follow up on outstanding items is to create tickler system. You can do this on your computer with electronic reminders or you can use an accordion file with slots numbered 1 through 31.

• Place your accordion file where you can easily access it on a daily basis.
• Make a photocopy of anything requiring follow up.
• Put the copy in the slot for the date that you will follow up on it.
• Each day, simply pull all of your copies from the current date slot and follow up. Make any necessary notes on the follow up copy and, if the item requires additional follow-up, place the copy back into the accordion for the next appropriate date.

Following these tips for organizing your office will help to ensure that you are as efficient as possible at work.