New Year’s Resolution: Get Organized

It is almost the New Year and time to start thinking about a new year’s resolution, if you haven’t already. You could make 2009 your year to get yourself organized. As I stress a lot on this blog, organization is very important, and can make your life a little less stressful. So getting your office organized could also make 2009 better. If getting organized is going to be your New Year’s resolution you have to make sure you can keep it. There are many ways to keep organized. Start off the new year by cleaning out all of the unneccessary stuff you have in your office. Then make a new system that is easy to use, so you can finally keep that new year’s resolution. Also, check out this blog because there are new ideas and tips all the time. Happy New Year, and good luck with your resolution.

Get Organized for the Holidays

Having an organized office can make your holiday shopping less stressful. Here are a few tips to get organized this holiday season.  First of all, keep all of your receipts from shopping in a separate place so you can easily find them. That way when something is opened Christmas morning and doesn’t fit, you can easily find the reciept. This will make for less stress after the holidays have past. Another thing you can do to be organized for the holidays is make lists of who you need to buy for, who you have already bought for, your budgeting, etc. This way no one is forgotten on Christmas and there are no surprises when the credit card bill comes. Wrapping presents as soon as you buy them can also make for things easier. You won’t be up late Christmas eve wrapping if you wrap them earlier. Also, try to keep the rest of your office organized because losing anything will create stress, and the holidays can be a stressful time of year. Just remember the more organized you are the more joyous this holiday season will be.

Color Coding Files

Files are something that all home offices have, whether you like it or not. Files can become confusing and hard find over time. Having file folders that are different colors can be helpful when looking for a file. Colored files can make you so much more organized. For example have everything in blue folders: financial information, yellow: unfinished projects, and red: client information, or whatever you need them to be. When you want to find information on that client you helped last month you can open up the file cabinet, go to the red files, and pull the one you need. It can make finding files quick and simple.

Overflowing Drawers

When you think about an organized home office you may or may not think about your drawers, but they are important to home office organization. Your desk drawers, and any other drawers you have, should not have so much stuff that they barely close. Try cleaning out your drawers every once in awhile. Depending on what is in the drawer, the bottom should be barely covered by it’s contents. You should be able to open the drawer and see all of the stuff in it. This way you don’t waste time searching for things. I recommend getting drawer organizers that have compartments for things like pens, pencils, paper clips, etc. Having an organized home office means that you should have organized drawers.

Put Everything Away

Leaving things laying out around is going to ruin your chances of an organized home office. If you never put things away you will end up with stuff all over your office and you won’t be able to find things that you need. You will end up spending a lot of time looking for things that would take seconds to find in an organized home office. That is why putting things away is so important. Not only is it going to help keep you organized, but it can be a huge time saver in the long run. It may take time to put things away but it is less time than what you would be wasting looking for things. Everything in your home office needs to have a place to be stored, and when you aren’t using something it needs to be put away. I recommend taking a few minutes at the end of the day to put everything away.

Computer To Do List

To do lists are very important. They can help keep time in your home office organized. But with pen and paper you can end up using lots of paper and you have to rewrite things on to other lists when you run out of room. So putting your to do list of a computer can be very helpful. This not only saves paper, but it is easy to remove things and alter things without crossing things out. If you have a project that has to be done by Thursday, you can put the date next to it. Then, if the day you need to do it by changes, you can can change it on your list very easily. Something else that you might consider is color coding item. For example you could make things that need to be done as soon as possible red, things that don’t need to be done as quickly yellow, and everything in between orange. A to do list on the computer can make your to do list very convenient.

Empty Your Trash Can

Have a trash can is a must in having an organized home office, but it is also important to empty it. When you have a trash can that is overflowing you may not throw things away that should be thrown away. An overflowing trash can is not nice to look at. So empty your trash can before it gets full and you will be on your way to haveing an organized home office.

The Paperless Office

There are many things that every home office has, like a phone book, letters, bills, and books just to name a few. But many of these things do not need to be kept on paper. For example you can find a phone book online that is much easier to use that an actual book. Also, you don’t have a huge book taking up space and you help to save trees by using less paper. Emails can also use up a lot of paper, that is if you print them out. Avoid printing out unnecessary emails and you’ll save paper. Another thing that may take up lots of your paper supply is printing documents. Try proofreading on the computer, this will also save time when you go to make corrections. Also, if someone is going to send you a document, ask them to email it instead of printing it, not only will this mean less paper for you to deal with, but no postage fees and you receive it instantly. There are many ways to reduce the amount of paper you use. And the less paper you have the less files you have to deal with. New technology is always coming out and if used properly it can make working in your home office much easier.

Finding Time to Organize

Some people say that they would like to organize, but they just don’t have the time. This is not a good excuse at all because if you take the time to organize you will end up saving so much time. This is because once you are organized you won’t end up wasting time looking for things. Being organized will make you have more free time. Organization is the thing that can give you the time to do things for yourself. So don’t use the excuse that you don’t have time to organize, because just a little bit of time at the beginning will end up saving you tons of time. The more time you invest, the more free time you will receive.

Simplify Your Filing System

Filing is probably the best way to organize your papers. This means that you really want to try and maintain and utilize your filing system. There is no specific way for you to set up your filing cabinet. You should set it up so that it works for you. The one thing that should be in common of all filing cabinets though is simplicity. If it is so complex that it takes 5 minutes to find or file something, then you won’t make the most of your filing cabinet. To simplify your filing cabinet just go through and get rid of unimportant things. Also, keep like things together. This means that bills should be together and not all throughout your filing cabinet. If your filing system works for you and it is simple for you to use, then you will be more likely to keep all of your papers organized.

Where to Put Books

You probably have a bunch of books in your home office, and no idea of where to put them. I recommend that you have two places to put your books. The first place should be close to your desk. This is where you should put the books that you are always using. Having them within reach when siting down makes getting them much easier. That is one of the places you should put your books. The second is in a bookshelf or something that is in your home office but it doesn’t need to be near your desk. This will be where you will put books that you use but not that often. Having two places to put your books will make getting certain ones easier, and ones that you don’t use often out of the way.

Common Items Should Be Close By

When in your office the things that you are always using should be in close reach. This means that things such as pens, computer, memo pad, and other essential office supplies. If it is something that you use a lot, but not many times throughout the day, then it should go in your desk. This makes it accessible but not in your way. You should have only the most important things on your desktop. Other things you use should be in a drawer in your desk. Try to keep your desktop clear of clutter and it will make your home office easier to use so you will be more inclined to use it.

File the Pile!

I am sure that somewhere in your home office you have a pile of papers, and if you don’t then you are very organized. Piles will more than likely lead to you creating bigger piles. If you have piles you won’t be able to find what you are looking for in a timely manner. So when you see a pile starting to grow, go thorough it and make sure that you go through it and file the papers in the proper place. Also, while doing this you should make sure that you throw things away that you do not need. Getting rid of piles will decrease the amount of time it takes you to find stuff and increase the amount of stuff that you get done. You should try to keep file folders handy so that you will be more likely to file papers. So file the pile and you’ll save lots of time.

Importance of Getting Rid of Things

Getting rid of things is probably the most important thing to maintaining an organized home office. When you accumulate too much stuff it becomes almost impossible to stay organized. There are just too many things to put away. Not only will putting the stuff away be a pain, it will also take lots of time. Then you have to make sure that your home office stays organized with all of that stuff. Since that will be very hard to do many people will give up and their home offices will start to become unorganized. This will make things harder to find, so it will take more time to search for the things. So get rid of things when you don’t need them, or you may collect too much stuff. And that will put you into a spiral that leads to total chaos in your home office.

Cleaning Filing Cabinets

Every once in a while it is important to go through your filing cabinets and clean them out. This will make it easier to find the important things. To clean it out, pick a drawer, and go through getting rid of stuff you don’t need. Make sure that you don’t accidentally throw something out that is important. Once you finish cleaning out stuff in one drawer, go to the next. Go through every drawer making sure to get rid of things that you really don’t need. What you get rid of is up to you, just remember, don’t get rid of things you need. Once you have organized your filing cabinet organized things will be easier to find.