How to Keep Your Home Office Less Cluttered

In an age where most of us find ourselves working at home, creating a productive workspace is paramount. You may have kids to watch while you simultaneously write up a report. Or trying to find a balance between work and life responsibilities becomes a bigger challenge than anticipated. One of the challenges we may overlook is the appearance of our home office itself. A neat, orderly office space is the key to reaching the aforementioned productive work area. That is why, when possible, you should take the time to organize your space when appropriate.

Your home office, no matter how hard you try to keep it as clutter-free as possible, will inevitably become messy again. By scheduling in some regular, weekly maintenance, you will be able to work in a space that is both productive, as well as clean in the days to come. To create a less cluttered home office, keep in mind the following tips.

Storage Systems

To avoid a cluttered-up home office, start tidying up any area when it becomes messy. This entails putting things in the appropriate drawers or cabinets so that their appearance doesn’t impede the space. If you are trying to create a less cluttered workspace, you must resort to storage systems. Keeping things out of sight will be essential whether you use a secondary desk or a mobile storage unit. However, you don’t just want to throw things away into the nearest cabinet to reach this rule. Use your intuition and keep things aligned with similar accessories!

Home Office Supplies

As mentioned previously, keeping things in a neat and orderly fashion means that you’ll have to be smart with the organization. For those with a plethora of office equipment, this means more than just keeping them positioned on your desk. A separate storage system for these items will more than likely be necessary. Get a smaller cabinet and organize the drawers by the type of supply you have. Writing utensils should be placed in one drawer, while blank paper and other documents should go in another. Whenever you need to grab something from this storage unit, you’ll know exactly where to find it. Plus, it keeps things from looking messier overall.

Cable Management

At the moment, most of the devices we use for work will have some form of a cable attached. We are still some years away from reaching a truly mobile home office setup. In the interim, you are encouraged to be smart with how your cables are organized. Thankfully, there are a ton of devices that can do the legwork for you. Cable management devices can be installed in or around your desk for ease of access. Once it is properly put in, organize all of the cables inside of it. The finished product will result in a tidy workspace with no protruding cables. It also reduces the chances for you to trip accidentally.

Colour Coding

In most of our lives, going to school meant that your belongings had to have been organized. We all may have had different systems, but a colour-coded system was universal by those standards. Why not, then, apply the same method to organizing your home office setup as a whole? For example, if you have a large number of documents, a filing cabinet will be a good start. Organize these documents using different coloured tabs to ensure that you know what is placed where. It is a quick, and relatively simple way to avoid clutter with your papers, while also staying organized.

Work Zones

Most of our home offices will usually be set up in a simplistic manner. If you want to take this up a notch and make it more productive, you might like to structure it in a better way. Creating a workspace that is organized by specific work zones may be of interest to some. This entails creating mini spaces within the overall space. You can, for instance, have your main work area in one designated spot. Then, a paper processing space may be on the opposite side of the room. The more you divvy up your workspace into smaller zones, the more systemized it will appear! Lighting is also an important part of your office space, you can find out more here.

Minimalism

Another big guideline to keep in mind when creating a home office is to go the route of minimalism. Less is definitely more, especially for keeping things as non-cluttered as possible. Use only what you absolutely require in your home office accessories or furniture. Then, you will ensure that the space is as orderly as possible.