2 Weeks: The Home Office

Do you have one of these?  Mine is a combo home office/baby's nursery, so it's messy to say the least.  Most likely you do have a place you could call a "home office" whether it's a table in the corner of the living room, a section of counter, an actual room in your home, or the top of your dresser.  We've all got important paperwork that must be dealt with, and we all need a place to deal with or drop said paperwork.

The thing about home offices is that no two are alike, and no two are going to function in the same way, which means that it's much more difficult to write a "one size fits most" post about how to take care of the home office, so there will be some generalities in some of the tasks that I write on, to illustrate the need for creativity on our own parts and the individualism that exists in the home office adventure.

So, let's go ahead and get started on the home office.  Most likely, as is the case with most home office areas I've seen, there is some paperwork to be filed.  If you do not have a file system set up, get one!!!  You must, I repeat MUST have a filing system that works for you.  Now, don't think that means that you need to invest a bunch of money in filing drawers, because you don't.  I don't have a file cabinet at all right now.  I use a plastic file box and hanging files to store things.  I have been known to use an expandable file folder with about 15 sections or more.  I believe in having lots of manila folders around.  I also believe that manila envelopes are quite helpful in organizing your files.  No matter what you decide, you don't need to spend lots of money and you do need to label things.  I love Sharpie Markers for this...they're bold.

Once you've gotten things filed I believe you will probably find a ton of pens, pencils, highlighters, and markers hanging out with no where to go.  Get an attractive coffee mug from the kitchen (something you don't mind getting pen on) and toss all the writing utensils in it.  Set it in a corner of your work area.  I also think it's a great idea to re-purpose things, so grab an old baby food jar or baby sized bowl and use it to hold all your paper clips, rubber bands, push pins and other fasteners that have been hiding under the paper pile.  You may even go so far as to have a separate container for each kind of fastener.  Now that's organized!

If you've got pictures hanging out everywhere (oh, wait, is that just a photographer thing?) you may want to think about investing in either a photo album or photo box to store these things.  Photo boxes are rather inexpensive and are also acid free, so they preserve your photos while you store them.  Then you can get to the albums later on.

You probably also have some garbage or recycling laying around.  Make sure that when you're disposing of important documents, you shred anything that has account numbers or identification information.  You never know who's going to get there hands on your stuff.  If you don't have a shredder, just rip it up into little pieces or rip off the important part, tear it up, and put it in a different garbage can or recycle box.  I like to have a recycle box in my home office and in my kitchen so that I can remember to recycle as much as possible.  I also have a garbage can in both places.

Chances are you probably have some flash drives and CD's hanging out in your space as well.  You will want to make sure these are safely stored so they don't become damaged and you cannot then get the information on them that you need.  Brad and I mostly keep our CD's in the boxes they came in, or in the paper sleeve they came in.  You can purchase paper sleeves for CD's at most office supply stores.  Flash drives are easier to take care of, pull out another baby food jar and stick them all in together.  Then you'll know where they all are.  You may want to have a file in your space for CD's or you may want a separate plastic box to store these.

Now it's down to the corded mess that seems to permeate every aspect of our lives anymore.  I have a cord jungle in my office.  I try to do my best to keep the cords at bay, which makes me feel like being in my home office a lot more.  I usually have as many of our cords hidden behind or under furniture as possible (also good for childproofing or personal safety) and if I'm feeling really ambitious and Brad's in a good mood, we zip tie our cords to keep them from going all crazy wild on us.  Apparently there are some velcro cord keeper straps you can purchase, which I think are really cool, but alas, we have zip ties so that's what we use.

I think we're getting pretty well organized (which is the most difficult part of office cleaning) but now we're down to the actual "cleaning" part of it.  Let's start with the keyboard of your computer.  Your keyboard is most likely harboring over a million bacteria at any given moment.  Yuk!  I mean, how could it not be, considering it's touched by our hands that touch everything all day long.  Wiping down the keys with a clorox wipe or spraying it with lysol might not be a bad idea.  I once worked at a place where the person who had my job before me ate while working... a lot.  Some of the keys wouldn't work very well on the keyboard, so my friend Ann who worked with me, showed me a great way to clean the keyboard under the keys.

She would literally lay a clean towel down on the desktop, pick up the keyboard and shake it upside down over the towel.  When nothing else would fall out, she'd set the keyboard back down and it would be as good as new.  I also recommend using a vacuum with the brush hand held attachment to suck up yuck out from in between the keys.

You'll also want to dust and vacuum/sweep your area and wipe down the desktop before you're through. 

The office is a place to keep your papers organized, but it's only as good as it's systems and the people who's job it is to implement the system.  Taking a few moments after you get them mail, or before you go to bed to file your paperwork and tidy your space will keep it clean and ready for you when you need to sit down and do the "heavier lifting" that goes along with office work.

Good Luck!


Kristin