As a small business owner, I bounce around a lot between my home office and my office at my actual office. It’s not that my home office gets neglected, but items get shoved in drawers and forgotten about pretty regularly. After months of opening my junk drawer in my home office and then immediately slamming it shut in avoidance, I finally decided to organize my home office!
Since I share my home office with John, I really try my best to make it pretty without being ultra-feminine. I have partnered with Office Depot to share how to organize a home office for under $50. As much as I hate this step, the first thing is to take everything out of the drawer and purge whatever you don’t need.
After everything is cleared out, a good wipe down with a multipurpose cleaner is in order.
Now for the fun part, new organizational items. Office Depot and OfficeMax have several exclusive and licensed brands that help me run my small business. I especially love the See Jane Work® collection exclusively available at Office Depot and OfficeMax because they offer tools to manage my time efficiently and help me get and stay organized. For this project I used the wire letter tray, wire letter sorter, wire pencil cup, and wire file holder.
After I removed all the tags, I put everything back in places that I will be able to access easily. I use the wire letter tray in the center of the drawer because it makes a natural divider on either side for more organization.
One key tip when organizing is to put the items you use the least in the back of the drawer or on the bottom of a stack. They say that you are supposed to keep business financial documents for seven years in case you are audited. I do my best to store those files digitally so that they do not take up space in my desk. When you are dealing with limited space, do your best to only keep items that you will be using for that month. Find another space or invest in a small filing cabinet for any item or document you will not be using in the next few weeks. Realspace® offers a great selection of flexible and affordable filing solutions.
I have files that I use on a weekly basis, so I opted to have a smaller filing solution right on my desk.
In front of that, I wanted a place to be able to sort our mail. My best tip for mail is to go through it immediately when you bring it in the house. Throw away any junk mail right away, and then sort as applicable. Any invitations should be entered into your digital calendar and if possible, go ahead and RSVP. Sort bills and place them in a filing system that you know how to decipher.
Finally, put your pens, markers, scissors, and other writing implements in a cup that you can access easily!
I feel so much better about sitting down to work in my home office because I know I can find everything that I need quickly and efficiently. I hope you have also been inspired to organize your home office for under $50! If you want more tips on how to make your workday more efficient check out my post: 3 Ways to Maximize Time During Your Work Day.
Office Depot sponsored this post, but all thoughts and opinions are my own.
