Organizing Your Home Office
Almost everyone these days has a home office with a computer. It may just be for occasional web surfing or you may work 40 hours per week out of your home for your regular job. Regardless of the use, a well organized home office can help you get more done. Here are some tips on making that happen:
- Eliminate paper documents whenever possible. Subscribe to bank statements on-line. Scan or upload any documents to your hard drive or other services such as Google Docs. This also gives you piece of mind as these electronic copies can be backed up and saved permanently off-site and they are easily transportable. In the event of a house fire, all of your documents will survive (remember to put those electronic backups in a fireproof safe).
- Prevent piles. Have one basket for incoming mail and bills to go through. Touch each piece of paper just once. After you pay that bill, shred the paper or scan it and upload it to your computer (see #1).
- Minimize distractions. Although having a television in your office seems like a great idea, you would be amazed how much time you lose by glancing at the score of the game! Your office should be dedicated to only things that you need to do your profession or make/manage money. Don’t use your office to sort through your old high school pictures, you will never get any work done.
- Ignore the household noise. Close the door to your office, turn on some white noise, put in earplugs or even consider moving your office to another part of the house. It is easy to get sidetracked when you hear a child crying or yelling, the doorbell ringing, or dishes clanking.
Small changes can improve your productivity considerably. Then you can use all that extra time to get out of that office and do something you enjoy!
Pay MORE for your office chair!
An office swivel chair is possibly one of the most important pieces of equipment for an office worker. Whether you work at home or in a commercial office space a swivel chair is undoubtedly where you will spend most of your time. The tradesman would not skimp on the tools that he bought to do his job and similarly you – if it is your own business – shouldn’t skimp on the chairs that you buy for your office.
Buying a cheap swivel chair is a false economy, in the end you will end up buying two or three chairs over a five-year period when you could have just bought one good one to begin with. One decent swivel chair will cost less than the three cheap ones. It’s not just the financial cost of buying a cheap chair that is a false economy though. Poorly designed swivel chairs will cause you injuries in the long run, unfortunately the longer you spend sat in a chair the more likely it is that injuries will occur. Repetitive strain injuries are difficult injuries to treat and usually require physio at the very least – and physio doesn’t come cheap. I can assure you that the course of physio will cost you far more than a decent office chair would have in the first place.
The first feature you should be looking for in a chair is that the height can be adjusted. The second most important feature is that it has an adjustable back so that the angle of it can be adjusted so you are sitting leaning back slightly.
Being able to adjust the height of the chair means that you can safely use a keyboard and you won’t get neck strain looking at a monitor. The angle at the back is also a very underrated but important feature – contrary to what your mother told you about sitting up straight – actually leaning back slightly reduces the pressure on the lower back and means that you will be less likely to incur any lower back injuries.
Getting a Computer Desk
If you work with a computer all day, then one of the most important investments that you can make is a good computer desk. These types of desks are designed to not only hold your computer as well as your keyboard but it will also give you the storage space that you will need to store your office supplies. This will help you get your work done in an efficient manner. When buying a computer desk, there are a couple of options that you will have.
The first option is size. You will want to pick a desk that will accommodate the size of your computer monitor. If you use a laptop, then you won’t need too big of a desk. However, if this is the case and you sit at your laptop for several hours a day, you will want to consider getting a desktop computer because ergonomically speaking, a laptop will only lead to problems down the line. If you use a desktop, then make sure the desk you get will have enough room to put your monitor on.
You will also have an option of getting a hutch for the desk. Whether you decide to get one with a hutch or not will depend on what your storage needs are. Hutches are a great tool to organize all of your office material. You will also have different colors to choose from as well. A black computer desk will look great and professional. If you don’t have a lot of room, you may want to get a black corner desk which will make use of the corner of your room. You can find and buy any type of desk online or at an office furniture store. The cost will vary depending on what you get. If you use the computer a lot, don’t go cheap on the desk for the sake of your health.