Need tips for how to organize your home office?
Since brains take cues from our environment, setting up home offices with organizational systems to maintain it clutter-free will help keep your productivity up and signal to your brain as soon as you walk in the door that it’s “go-time.”
To help clear your desk clutter and set up an organized home office space that propels you into an inspired workflow, check out our best home office organization ideas.
Ideas for Home Office Organization
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Pick the Right Room for Your Home Office Setup
If you don’t already have a dedicated home office space, make a list of requirements you need to stay focused and be efficient.
Everyone knows a quiet and distraction-free home office is best, but consider details like the number of electrical outlets your gadgets require, the square feet of your desk(s), what type of lighting you work best in, or if you need to welcome clients.
If you already have a home office set up, consider your other rooms. It won’t hurt and you may find that the current playroom makes a better office.
🎨Your home office environment should echo your job requirements. A designer may need extra desk space and creative design, while a psychiatrist may want more seating with shelves to display books. Create your office essentials list based on you and your employer’s expectations.
How to Create a Decluttered Home Office
Decluttering items can keep stress levels in your office to a minimum. Dispose of things that don’t help you work like old desks, computers, broken bookcases, and more.
If you haven’t heard of Marie Kondo’s philosophy of only keeping what brings you joy, then this might be the last wagon for you to hop on.
Decluttered desk ideas
Maintain a clutter-free desk by following these tips:
- Only keep essential desk accessories that don’t overwhelm you.
- Match your desk accessories in color for a clean, uniform appearance.
- Keep as many small things out of sight as you can to have a seamless desk.
- Store extra pens in a cup instead of laying them in a drawer or on the table.
- Place a bookcase or magazine holder nearby to keep folders and journals off your desk.
How to quickly finish home office decluttering
Take it one drawer at a time and make piles for keep, donate, trash, and recycle. Doesn’t work? Repair it or throw it in its pile.
Gently used items should be dropped off for donation. Research if the items you need to get rid of are recyclable. Some office items aren’t and may be left behind at the curb.
If you have items that can’t go in the trash, drop them off at donation and recycling centers close to your home. Your local county website can give you information on where for tricky things like electronics, batteries, wires, and more.
If your car is too small or you need help carrying items like bulky desks, bookcases, and more, hire a junk removal service from LoadUp to save time and effort. Vetted experts can safely haul away heavy office furniture and take care of the recycling, donation and disposal for you.
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Use Multipurpose Office Furniture and Accessories
Once you’re done getting rid of unwanted office furniture, organize your home office in a practical but attractive way. Multipurpose office furniture are a great way to organize a home office because it keeps it clutter-free while also helping you work efficiently.
Note: Pinterest home offices should be taken with a grain of salt. What is aesthetically pleasing is often different than what is practical. Sorry, but tiny chairs aren’t great for long periods of time.
Think “functional first, beautiful second.” That doesn’t mean you have to have big and bulky office furniture like a cubicle or an oversized desk chair. Many brands are creating minimal, modern, and, best of all, ergonomic home office furniture designs.
Check out these multipurpose office furniture organization ideas:
- Paper shredder: keep paper clutter away at all times
- Office sofa: designate a decompression corner for breaks
- Calendars and whiteboards: create a visual daily command center
- Shelving units: store secondary gear like reference books, journals, and printers
- Over the door organizers: organize mail and other papers to keep desk space clear
- Dressers: use smaller boxes inside the drawers to organize office gadgets, utensils, etc.
- Pegboards: hang primary office supplies like headsets, chargers, baskets for utensils, etc.
Macro or Micro Organize Your Home Office
In home offices, organization is king. Or should be. Take an honest look at yourself and know if you’re a general organizer or a detailed organizer. Which type matters because while you can modify your organization system in the future and are encouraged to, they need upkeep.
Sign yourself up for an over-complicated system and your productivity can slip.
Macro-organization is the kind where you can lump similar things together and slap a label on them. It entails supplies like boxes, cabinets, buckets, magazine holders, and dressers that are loosely organized with smaller buckets. Imagine having a labeled box to hold all receipts that you will go through later, and then another labeled box to hold signed contracts.
Micro-organization is the kind where every-little-thing has home, a name, maybe a color, a recognizable scent, who knows. It entails supplies like filing cabinets, manila folders, color tab stickers, multiple journals, and more. You may want to organize by color, in alphabetical order, or some insanely creative process that only makes sense to your special brain.
Master Your Office Tech and Cable Management
Whether technology intimidates you or not, get a good grasp of how the printers, fax machines, and other electronics in your home office work. This will help you put things in practical areas and make you more confident when purchasing accessories to get your gadgets working at their highest potential.
For example, if you work on several monitors, computers, or tablets, you could benefit from upgrading to Bluetooth keyboards and mice to have fast and seamless transitions.
Visible and tangled chords trigger stress in many people. Keep your office clean and relaxing by tucking the cables and chords away using cable ties, gutters, and baskets. Chords are a never-ending problem but there are many creative ways to do cable management that no matter how tangled your situation is, you’ll can organize your office desk like a professional.
Take advantage of adhesive strips to attach all sorts of gadgets to surfaces for the ultimate ease of access. Plug and unplug your phone charger often? Attach power strips on the side of the desk and speed up this daily task.
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Use Cubbies to Organize Home Office Supplies
Whether you have a ton of items to organize for your small business or you need to display objects for clients to see, cubbies are a great organizational system you can easily apply.
IKEA is known for selling cubbies of many colors and sizes so you can pick the best one for your home office. For more storage, you can add stylish bins or baskets to rows or in a design that makes sense for you.
Bin organizing systems are game-changing storage solutions to bring your modern office organization to a much less complicated level. Simple labels on the outside of a bin make it easy to clean up and find what you need in a snap.
Design an Ergonomic Office
Workplace ergonomics is the science backing how business owners today design their office spaces with the skills and limitations of the worker being the driving factor. The goal is to improve performance and productivity by removing risk factors in the office.
As you can see, “workplace ergonomics” has become a hot word for good reason. Risk factors vary but in most office-based jobs, risk factors entail distractions and general wear and tear humans take from remaining seated for 8+ hours a day.
A good ergonomic home office set up helps us lose the background and zone in for hours, which involves a good desk, office chair, the right angle, lighting, and more! Everyone’s “skills and limitations” vary, so you have the advantage of personalizing every aspect of your office.
Invest in your health by maintaining good posture while at work! Upgrade your chair to support a healthy back. Shorties, get a footrest to help you lean back comfortably while you work. The top of your computer screen should be at eye level or a little below to reduce eye fatigue. To help your spine, lift your screen from the desk so you’re not looking down.
Use Inspiring Office Decor
Like we said, functional first, beautiful second. Now that you’ve gotten the boring details out of the way, it’s time to make it an inspiring office. Don’t underestimate the inspirational power objects and a well-decorated home office can bring. Focus on decorating your home office with things that stir up motivation and positivity.
These can be plants, candles, pops of color, household goods like a coffee maker, anything that brings happiness to you. You can display your collectibles, books, art from local artists, awards, famous people that you look up to, and more!
However, don’t get carried away. You want your environment to be stimulation for your work, not stimulation for distraction. For the busier inspirational objects, create an area that won’t distract or stress you out since environmental stimulation can be overdone.
Clock In and Get to Work!
Working from home means you wear all the hats that it takes to run an office. You are the front desk, the employee, mailman, IT person, supervisor, etc. These tips can help you transition through all those hats wasting a minimal amount of time. And we all know, time is money.
A great home office is like driving a luxury sports car while a cluttered office is like a hand-me-down car without a vehicle history report. Both can get you where you’re going, but you’re less likely to need to pull over and replace the engine on your road to success in a Lambo. 🤷♀️
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