TECHNOTES: Organizing Your Home Office

Summertime is my favorite time to organize certain rooms in our house.  They tend to get a bit unruly through the busyness of the year.  But once you wade through the clutter, what can be done to help incentivize you and your family members to put things in their rightful place?

Unfortunately, I have found, there is no right answer.  The best thing I can say after years of being on “reality ranch,” is that when you involve family members in organizing, it helps get their buy-in to keep it clean.  But when schedules get tight and other priorities kick in, the next best thing you can do is give grace.

Nonetheless, there are a ton of great ideas out there to help inspire you and your family keep things in their rightful place.

To help you organize your space with your family, this article is the first of three TECHNOTES to help you organize your home office, kitchen, and garage.  This week we’ll focus on organizing your home office.

Organizing Your Home Office

If you work at home, the office can get quite cluttered with your work tasks, family tasks, and personal tasks.  There’s a lot to sort out.  Where do you start first?

Let’s start with one of my favorite things, Technology…

TECHNOLOGY

Technology is a good place to start in organizing your home office.  There are so many products available today with rechargeable batteries – they are so handy!  But with all those cords and chargers, this area can get out of control FAST!

Cords are difficult to manage.  You likely have all sorts of cords from printer cables to composite video cables to HDMI cables to USB cables to Firewire cables to video console wires to Ethernet cables to cable wires, you name it, you likely have them!  Here’s a great way to find a cable when you need it and curb going haywire!  Here’s another idea using an ornament box.

I love this idea for more power at your desk.  And here’s a great hack for power cord organization under the desk.

Have a lot of phones and tablets in your home? We recommend keeping phones and tablets downstairs in a centralized charging hub.  This way you can ensure your kids and teens aren’t up all night playing games and texting.

If you love your SLR camera, you probably have a lot of gear for it.  This drawer idea is great for keeping your charging cables, batteries, SD cards, lenses, and accessories in one accessible spot.

DRAWERS

Organizing your home office should start with some of your key drawers (all of them if you have the time!), it’s a great way to help you feel more in control…and find things more easily!  There are tons of drawer organizers out there.  Most are pricey, some are moderate in price, but if you’re crafty, you can make drawer organizers on the cheap!

You can buy plastic boxes like these to customize your drawer or another cheaper way to go is to collect small cardboard jewelry boxes to make your drawer organized.

Organizing your home office doesn’t need to be expensive.  You can buy plastic boxes to outfit your drawers from the Dollar Tree!  There are 4 per item minimums if you order online, but hey, that’s OK, the price is right!  Have them shipped for free to your local store. 

But first check out your local Dollar Tree.  I found all of these items in my store in black and in white and bought a bunch!

PAPER

Does your desk have papers everywhere?  There are two types of styles…Pile style and File style...which one are you?  I am a piler styler.  My thought is out of view, out of mind.  Nonetheless, as my piles increase, it’s not necessarily easy to find the paper or document I’m looking for! 

Scanning is a good thing to help you rid of paper.  A good portable scanner you can keep on the desk makes it easy to scan in important school documents that you may need to reference later.

Nonetheless, I do believe filing is important for documents that are not needed…until they’re needed.  With receipts, tax documents, insurance documents, bills, ATM statements, checkbook ledgers, it’s hard to know how long you should keep things.

This handy chart guides you on how long to stash and when to trash.

For paperwork you refer to occasionally…and sometimes need to take with you, either to another room or out of the house, placing papers in colorful binders is a great way to organize.  Taking care of the paper clutter and giving everything a place or a folder goes a long way in organizing your home office.

STYLE

Making your office place an inviting and fun place to work encourages you to visit it more often, no?  Organizing your home office can be done with style and fashion, suited to your personality.  

Use the wall to keep your calendar, goals, and important files viewable and accessible.

For stylish desk accessories, here’s a few using brass or pink.  Have desk accessories already but would love some DIY ideas to personalize them?  See this article.

An office space doesn’t have to be elaborate to add style.  Simple additions like bookshelves can add display and organization space while adding style and pizzaz to your office.

You’ll be surprised at how a little bit of organization can really perk up not only your office but your attitude and creativity as well. 

Remember, organizing your home office doesn’t have to be an expensive endeavor, there are plenty of things you can do yourself to organize and personalize your space.

Next week, look for our organization ideas for the kitchen.