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!
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