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Organizing Your Office for Working at Home
Neil Rohrbacker • Mar 30, 2020
Working from home has become more and more common in recent weeks, and home workers are likely to become even more numerous as businesses that previously required their employees to come into work find new ways to manage and support remote workers. But working from home can be a big adjustment for those who are new to it.
Creating a dedicated space for work inside the home can be a big help for many home workers. When you have a home office
or other work-only space, you can train your brain to go into work-mode when you enter that space, and this can help increase concentration and focus, aiding in productivity. It also helps to have a space that others in the house don’t use and can respect as your work-only space. If you’re creating a new home office space or anticipate that you’ll be using an existing home office
space more frequently now than you did previously, take a look at some organization tips that can help you optimize that space so that you get the most out of it.
Set Up a Printing Station
A printer can take up a lot of valuable real estate on your desk. What’s more, it can be disruptive – printing has become quieter than it used to be, but home printers still make noise. You can save space and minimize distraction by setting up a printer station away from your desk.
If your home office
has a closet, this could be an ideal place to add some shelves and create a hidden printer station. All you need to do is add some shelving. Use this to store both your printer and your printing supplies, like additional paper and replacement ink. You’ll have a cleaner desk and less disruption during your workday, and you’ll have an accessible way to get to your printed documents when you need them.
Use Drawer Organizers
No matter how neatly you place items into your desk or cabinet drawers, they’ll become a jumbled mess as you open and close them and rummage around in them on a daily basis unless you set up some physical barriers to prevent this from occurring. You probably have drawer organizers in your kitchen drawers – plastic bins that keep the spoons, forks, and knives in different compartments so that they don’t end up all in the same disorganized heap. You should do the same for your home office
drawers.
You can find drawer organizers in most office supply stores and department stores. Make sure to measure your drawers before you go shopping so that you can choose organizes that fit the space that you have available, and choose one that will give you compartments for your pencils, pens, highlighters, paper clips, tape, and other essential items.
Get a Desk File
No matter how many binders you make or file cabinets you have, there will always be papers that defy immediate organization. Documents that are part of a work in progress, reference documents that you need to have handy on a regular basis, and letters or other communications that you don’t need to keep permanently, but are keeping on hand until you respond to or act on them, are some of the types of papers that end up littering home office
desks.
A desk file is the simple and convenient answer to this problem. A small desk file will give you three to five slots for papers, perfect for the documents that you need at your desk, at least for now, but don’t necessarily want spread all over your desk. It’s an old-school solution, but there’s a reason why desk files are still a commonly-purchased desk accessory – they work.
Install Cubbies
Remote working isn’t always all papers and computer files. Perhaps you have products that need to be packaged and shipped out or prototypes that need to be stored until they can be used. Maybe your job requires the use of tools that don’t necessarily fit into desk drawers and that you don’t need to have over all of the other surfaces in the room.
Cubbies make excellent storage space for items that are larger than ordinary office items or that are oddly shaped and don’t fit neatly onto shelves or desktops. Like additional shelving, cubbies can also be installed in closets, so they don’t have to be immediately visible when you walk into the room or get in the way of the rest of your home office aesthetic. Talk to your professional home office
organizer to learn more about the options available.
Don’t Forget to Decorate
Just because your home office
is a workspace doesn’t mean that it can’t be attractive and inspiring. Bare walls and clutter that’s found its way in from other rooms in your home can inhibit your creative and productive energy and get in the way of your workflow. Take the time to make sure that your office is clean and decorated in a way that improves your ability to work – and that won’t embarrass you as a background during a video meeting.
If your home office
space has become a dumping ground for clutter cleaned out of other rooms, make use of your closet space
in order to de-clutter. With a customized closet, you can make room for boxes, bins, or bags that are currently preventing you from moving freely around the room or that make your office look less like an office and more like a storage unit. The addition of shelves, racks, rods, hanging baskets, and other closet accessories can go a long way toward creating closet storage space that you previously didn’t think was available to you.
Your Closets to Adore home office
designer can help by creating a work area and storage system that will help you be more productive while working at home. Contact us today to learn more about our custom home office products and designs.