If your home office has started to feel cluttered, you may find it difficult to get work done. Clutter is a productivity killer: you’ll find yourself spending more time trying to find things than to actually do your job. Working from home can already be distracting.

Here are some tips for organizing your home office so you can be productive again:

1. Invest in Drawers and Filing Systems

Clutter will start rising up if you don’t have a place to put your things. Invest in drawers and filing systems so you have a place for everything that you regularly use. A few items that can help include:

Hanging folders within drawers. Hanging folders still make it easy to access your documents, while keeping them well-organized by category or by year.
Binders. If you have large numbers of related documents, consider binding them up. That way you’ll be able to keep them in a single, consolidated place.
Filing cabinets. A good filing cabinet can hold pretty much everything you need. Consider a rotating cabinet if you’re low on space.
Shelves. If you have items that need to be set aside but can’t be filed, shelves can help. Hanging shelves take up little to no space and are easily accessible.

You can’t be organized if you don’t have the right tools. Investing a little in your office can make it a much more pleasant place to be.

2. Get Yourself a Better Desk

If your desk has limited space and limited storage, it may be your desk itself that’s a problem. Measure out your space and find a desk that will fit comfortably there, while also providing you with the largest amount of drawers, shelves, and more. Many modern desks also offer cord management tools, which can help you organize your electronics.

3. Digitize as Much as Possible

You may not need all of those paper documents. Consider digitizing your documents and keeping them organized on your computer, rather than in and around your desk. There are new apps that let you scan documents with your smartphone rather than having a dedicated scanner. Just make sure that any documents with private or confidential data are properly password protected and encrypted.

4. Create a Schedule for Cleaning Your Office

Most offices don’t become cluttered overnight. Instead, the clutter builds up over time. You need to clean your home office regularly like any other room in your home, rather than once every once in a while.

On your calendar, select a day for cleaning your office. Once a month is a good schedule to be on. It’ll keep your office from getting too cluttered between cleanings, and give you the opportunity to get rid of anything that’s no longer needed.

5. Make Organizing and Decluttering a Relaxing Occasion

Pour yourself a cup of coffee or tea, turn on some music, and pull everything out of your office. Organize and declutter at a relaxed pace as you can make decluttering enjoyable. Decluttering is a great time: you can review the work from the month, find anything that needs to still be completed, and overall improve upon your organisation.

6. Throw Away Anything You Don’t Need

The best way to remove clutter is to throw it out. While there may be some things you just can’t get rid of, often there are things that you no longer use. You don’t need three staplers, ten notebooks, and a whole stack of miscellaneous paperwork. Throw away (recycle or donate) things that you don’t need and you’ll have far fewer items to organize.

By decluttering and organizing your office, you can improve your productivity and that gives you some extra time to make sure that your office remains well-organized, too.

For more tips on clearing out the clutter, follow Get Organized Wizard.

Decluttering and Organizing Your Home Office to Inspire Productivity