5 Home Office Tuneups
It’s back to school season, and even if no one in your home is headed to class this fall, now is a great time to declutter and organize your home office.
Your office (or office area) is the space where you want to be able to take care of life’s business quickly and efficiently. By sorting, streamlining and optimizing now, you’ll be up and humming all winter.
Need a plan of attack? Start here:
1. Tackle old tech. That nasty tangle of cords that lead to nowhere. Software from the aughts. The dusty broken printer in the corner. Don’t live with it one more day. Be sure to check out the electronic waste options on my Recycling Resources Guide.
2. Do a drawer dump. Pull everything out of your drawers. Now inspect all the contents and retain only what you actually use. Ask yourself, do I really need 5 different staple removers? Those 4 pens running out of ink? The twisted paper clips? Nah.
3. Sort it out. Rolls of tape, paper clips, paper reams, thumbtacks, new pens. Put everything together and in one place. Check out a couple of my favorite desk drawer organizers here and here. Be sure to measure the drawers before you buy to make sure they fit!
4. Review receipts. Only keep the ones you need to prove a business deduction. Everything else can go.
5. Hit the Paperwork Pile. There it sits. The stack of mail, bills, forms, etc that keeps getting taller and more menacing. But there’s no way around it, you gotta go through it. Digitize as much as you can. Once that’s done, shred and recycle all that paper.
My trick? Take your paperwork out of the office and go through it after you’ve decluttered the rest of the space. That way, you can finish the task at hand without getting sidetracked.
Reward yourself! Fresh flowers or a new plant will celebrate a job well done.
Tracy’s Tip: