Home Office Organizing Tips: Paperwork
The 2nd Tuesday of March has been declared as National Organize Your Home Office Day. I find the biggest challenge in keeping a home office clean and tidy is paperwork. We all have it – the mail, bills, receipts, manuals, etc.
Paper clutter can be a major problem. Get rid of it and get organized. Throw junk mail away immediately. Don’t even take it to your office or desk. Keep a trash can or a recycling box, near the door, especially for junk mail. Whatever does make it to your home office should be handled as soon as possible.
At the very least, set-up a system to hold the paperwork such as stackable bins. Label them to pay (the bills), to act (permission slips to sign, correspondence to respond to), and to file. Then once a week, act on these bins and clear them out.
Don’t let paper clutter your desk. If you don’t have room on the floor for a filing cabinet purchase a hanging file system. These types of filing systems are designed to hang from a hook on the back of a door. It can easily be hidden in a closet this way. Labeling each pocket based on your needs, such as bills, copies of receipts, and tax deductions will keep your desk clutter free and keep you better organized.
Decide on a filing system and stick to it. Maybe you use a filing cabinet with tabbed-dividers to store paperwork. Or perhaps floor space is not available for a filing cabinet so you can use binders. Even the accordion type of filing folders work for some families or businesses that do not have a lot of paperwork. Whatever you decide on, use it. Don’t do a little of this and a little of that – this will only cause confusion when you need to get your hands on something.
Make it usable. One big tip of having an organized home office is maintenance. Be sure to make your systems workable. A filing system is only as good as the person using it, so be sure to implement a system that works for you.
Even with limited workspace, with a little creativity and the right equipment, it is possible to have your home office paperwork organized.
For more tips, pop on over to BlogMammas and enjoy Tuesday’s Tip Jar.
Filed under Organizing
Using free and open source software applications is a great way to organize your small office/home office as well as save money on expenses. DealDogs.net has an interesting article entitled “FreeOffice: 10 Great Free Apps For Instant Office Productivity” that reviews ten no-cost applications that work great. This is the article link here which provides descriptions, links and videos about each application, from a word processing office suite to free faxing.