Do you want to be the best office manager you’ve ever had?
Home office managers wear many caps. If you are working from home or have set up you own company based at home then you have no choice – office organization starts and ends with you.
You become the manager, the secretary, the messenger, the IT department and everything else in between.
Quite possibly, you assume all these roles while battling potential distractions – yikes, it’s a big task!
So let’s set clear guidelines that will help you become a productive one-man show.
3 Ways To Organize Your Home Office
1. Choose An Ideal Working Space
You may be working from the comforts of home, but it’s important to create a working vibe.
Choose a work space that:
- Has a door, if possible. Distractions can then lie on the other side of it
- Has access to fresh air and windows (natural light)
- Puts you in work mood, not leisure time mood. For example, add a few pot plants and remove distractions like craft boxes if you’re into crafting, or the PS4 console if you’re a gamer.
Psychologically, having a dedicated home office like this will help you focus on work and increase your productivity.
2. Learn to Schedule and Organize
The most important thing you can do is to start making a schedule and organise it. Whether it’s with technology or good old pen and paper, you should aim to set:
- Your goals for the day, delegate these goals to their own timeframe and achieve them before the day ends
- Weekly and monthly schedules to help keep pace of your workload
- Simple boundaries for productive work – things like checking your emails every two hours and only respond to urgent messages.
A well-structured work schedule will help you keep check of remaining workload you have for the day. There are many Apps and computer software productivity tools that allow you to allocate tasks and set timeframes. Experiment with some and see what style suits you.
For example, phone apps can manage and schedule your work, you can easily tick them off from the list and even remind you of schedule jobs or meetings for the hour.
3. Minimise Distraction and Take Breaks
Is social media part of your job? If not – log out.
Social media one of biggest distractions that takes people away from productivity today. And before you poo-hoo the idea, I have a solution! Factor in time to check your social media. Just like you set tasks for the day, set two 10-minute social media breaks. Then you can work more productively, knowing that time has been set for fun stuff & you’re not missing out!
Is cleaning your house part of you job? If not – forget it.
Do not linger on remaining house chores. Remind yourself that you are in office hours. Again, you can schedule some tasks within your daily schedule to accommodate house tasks that must be done, but if possible, avoid it.
An occasional big break can do a lot to energize you. Take 5 minutes to hang out the washing in between meetings. Or sit in the sunshine and have a coffee after writing a blog for a few hours. Once you start factoring these little tasks into your day it subconsciously gives you permission to crack on with other things because you’ve lost the fear of “missing out”.
It’s feels good when you can pre-plan, schedule, organise your goals around your home office. Let us know how you make it happen.
Download Your Free, Interactive, Printable To-Do Lists For Work Here.
Where is the printable??
Sorry Sandy, the blog link didn’t appear, I’ve fixed that now.
Click here for your free printables: https://www.getorganizedwizard.com/to-do-lists/free-printable-to-do-lists-for-work/
🙂 Kylie, Community Manager
you need to put in the link for the printable
Sorry Linda, the blog link didn’t appear, I’ve fixed that now.
Click here for your free printables: https://www.getorganizedwizard.com/to-do-lists/free-printable-to-do-lists-for-work/
🙂 Kylie, Community Manager
Where is the free printables?
In the email, you mentioned free printableS; in the title you mentioned free printable. I couldn’t find any.
Sorry Lu-Lu, the blog link didn’t appear, I’ve fixed that now.
Click here for your free printables: https://www.getorganizedwizard.com/to-do-lists/free-printable-to-do-lists-for-work/
🙂 Kylie, Community Manager