If you’ve been working from home this past year, you know how important your work area is to your productivity. Today, guest blogger, Michelle Hansen of Practical Perfection offers five easy steps to getting your home office desk organized so you can find what you need when you need it whether it be 9-5 Monday – Friday or after hours…

A home office desk sometimes feels like a disaster zone. With piles of untouched papers, a handful of broken pens, and half-used notebooks all crammed inside, it’s easy for your desk to feel untidy and chaotic. Plus, trying to find anything in those messy drawers seems impossible.

If you want to improve your home office experience (or even breathe a little easier at home), conquering that desk is a necessary evil. But, don’t worry, organizing your home office desk can be really simple!

Step 1: Declutter your desk drawers

The first step when you’re organizing anything is to declutter. Working one drawer at a time, go through every single item. With pens, markers, and highlighters, check to see if they even work. You may be surprised how many have dried out!

Be strict as you go through any planners, notebooks, and stationery. Do you have notebooks you never use? If there is any stationery you rarely use, there’s no sense in letting it take up valuable space in your desk. Donate any good notebooks or stationery you’re discarding.

Be realistic as you’re decluttering and only keep what you really use or need. If you have multiples of things like staplers, calculators, or scissors, choose your favorites and donate the rest. You probably don’t need more than 1-2 of each of these items.

Step 2: Separate your supplies into categories

Once you’ve gotten your office supplies whittled down to the ones you actually use, it’s time to separate them into categories.

Start making separate piles on your desk or the floor for writing utensils, loose-leaf paper, notebooks, binders etc. If you find one of your piles is too large, this is a good indication that you might not have decluttered enough, and you might need to reassess your supplies and purge the a bit more.

As you categorize, pay attention to what you use the most. This will help you when you start to put everything back.

Step 3: Organize your drawers strategically

Prioritize your drawer space when you’re putting everything back inside your desk. This is when it’s important to remember what you use the most.

Your top middle drawer is prime real estate, so you want to fill it with things you use all the time. It’s usually thinner than the other drawers, so it limits what you can fit, but it’s perfect for things like pens, pencils, scissors, tape, rubber bands, or paper clips. Any small items you’re always reaching for are made for your top middle drawer.

Be thoughtful as you organize the rest of your drawers. Do you tend to reach to your right side or your left side more? What feels more natural? If you reach for your right-side drawers more often, use the top drawer on that side for things you use the most. Then the drawer beneath that should be filled with your second most-used items, and so on, until you fill the desk!

I would also suggest organizing the inside of your drawer by most-used to least-used as well. In each drawer, decide what items in that category you use frequently and put those at the front. Then work your way back, so the items at the very back of the drawers are the ones you use the least.

Step 4: Use dividers and small bins to keep your supplies contained

I love putting small containers or dividers in my desk drawer. First, it keeps everything tidy. Second, you never lose anything this way! (Unless you have kids who are always stealing the scissors…I’ve been there before.)

Find small, unlidded containers that fit in your desk and use them to separate as many items as you can. I keep sharpies, highlighters, and pens in separate containers, as well as safety pins, paperclips, and post-it notes.

Organizing your home office desk in this way is a game-changer. How often are you rifling through your drawer to find a paperclip or a rubberband? Keeping them in separate, contained areas means you won’t have any small items rolling around in your desk anymore and you’ll always be able to find them.

Step 5: Maintain your new organized desk with a few simple rules

After you’ve spent the afternoon organizing your home office desk, the last thing you want is for it to get untidy again, right?

Focus on maintaining your desk by implementing a few quick rules, like always putting things back where they belong. I know this sounds like common sense, but we often just throw things back in the drawer when we could take a few extra seconds to place it precisely in it’s container or zone.

I’d also suggest that you operate by the “one in, one out” rule when it comes to your desk. Home office desks have limited space, and if you’re bringing home lots of new stationery or pens when you never use the ones you already have, your desk is going to quickly get messy again. So, if you find a new notebook you just have to have, make sure you donate one you already have in your desk.

If you make it a rule to donate or discard items you already have when bringing home new items, it will either stop you from even buying that extra (and often unnecessary) stationery, or it will ensure that your desk stays organized no matter how much you buy.

Now, in five easy steps, you have an organized home office desk! All you have to do now is focus on step five, and you’ll never dread working from home again.

Michelle Hansen is a Wife, Mom of 3, and Professional Organizer. She has a passion for showing others how being organized can transform their lives for the better on her blog, Practical Perfection.

Want to stay current and connected to Organized Artistry? Follow us on Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Goodreads!

Click here to sign up for Organized Artistry’s motivating newsletter.

Color–it’s not just for those who like rainbows–it’s for organizing, too!

Color coding is a system that organizes information, offers the eye instant recognition, and reduces the time searching for items your need–all useful when organizing a home, home office, or one’s schedule.

But, you don’t have to have a degree in art to organize with color. Here are some items found in the home that can easily be organized using color:

Papers

Are your piles growing as you sleep? Can’t find certain papers when you need them?

Start the color coding process by sorting your papers into different categories (such as finances, school, house, etc). Then, select a different color for each category. Hanging files and manila folders come in a rainbow of colors and can help you reduce the time spent looking for a particular document. If you designate ‘green’ as your color for ‘financial’ papers, you won’t waste time looking through yellow or blue folders for your last 401K statement.

If you’re not interested in spending money on colored folders, Avery makes adhesive colored circles that can be placed on hanging files or folders and have a similar effect.

Clothes Closet

If you look in home stores, you’ll find that hangers come in practically every color imaginable. Use colored hangers to differentiate the various types of clothing in your wardrobe. For example, hang work clothes on white hangers, work out clothes on blue hangers, and cocktail attire on purple hangers. If you keep up the system, you’ll never show up to the office in your yoga pants…

Let’s say you’re like me and you prefer to hang your clothes on crystal hangers. You can either tie a colored ribbon around the hanger or use those Avery colored circle stickers discussed above to differentiate between different clothing types.

Children

If you have more than one child, pick a specific color–that will be the color that will identify them. Some children’s items are easily organized by color: clothes, shoes, puzzles, sports equipment, backpacks, etc.

For example, ever wonder which of your kids left the wet towel on the bathroom floor? Assign each child a different colored towel and you’ll know who the culprit is very quickly…

Are you a busy family trying to keep track of everyone’s schedule? Color coding appointments on a calendar (planner/wall calendar/digital) is a quick visual cue to help you figure out which child has to be where on a particular day.

Computer

Is your desktop a jumble of files? Is your inbox filled with emails? Use color to save time and create consistency.

Color coding files by project enables your eye to focus when juggling multiple projects. For instance, label all files related to ‘The Smith Project’ (as well as it’s folder) a particular color. Time spent looking for documents or emails related to ‘The Smith Project’ will be drastically reduced if they are all the same color.

Color coding email messages can alert you to a message from a particular person (green = your boss, red = your spouse, blue = your kid’s school). Many email programs come with this feature–you just have to create the categories, enter the email addresses,  and choose their corresponding colors.

Holiday Decorations

It is not uncommon for stores to carry plastic bins and tubs that come in colors corresponding to a holiday. Try purchasing orange bins for Halloween decorations and costumes storage. Red and green do the trick for Christmas, blue for Hanukah, and pastel colors for Easter egg painting supplies. It’s SO much easier to find a colored bin in an attic or garage!

Why not bring some color into your life? Using color as a part of your organization plan will save you time, money, and stress in the long run and just think about how colorful (and organized) your life will be!

Tell me–how do you get organized with color in your home?

Hi. My name is Stacey and I am a reforming email hoarder.

Did I mention I was also a Professional Organizer?

That’s OK–laugh if you want to. I laugh every time I tell someone this story.

How did I get to be an email hoarder?

All it takes is being a very busy woman with lots of interests and one email address for both business and personal emails. Throw in two young kids, not enough time in one’s day, and being a visual person and the emails began to accumulate.

“I’ll look back at them later.” I said.

“If I put them in a folder, I’ll forget about them.” I figured.

“I’ll chip away at them little by little.” I promised myself.

Yes, I looked back at a bunch and yes, I did chip away at some but the emails were coming in faster than I could take action upon them.

By February, I had a thousand emails in my Inbox. Yes, you read that right–1000–one thousand. That’s A LOT of emails…

Organized Artistry is getting a facelift this year–a new logo and a newly-designed website and blog. My web designer mentioned that I needed to change the hosting company of my website due to compatibility issues so I did the domain transfer. The last step was to have my email flow from my old host to my new host.

So last week, I got on the phone with my new host to help me take that last step. What the person on the other end didn’t ask me was whether or not I had any emails in my Inbox. When the email was transferred to the new host’s server, it wiped my Inbox clean. As you can imagine, I almost had a heart attack. After lacing into him for this oversight I asked how it could be fixed. He told me I had to call my old hosting service for some coding and some numbers and then I had to call my new host back with that information.

I wasn’t happy, but I did it. I called my old web host and explained the problem. We accessed my inbox through ‘webmail’ and yes, all the emails were still there. He put me on hold for a few minutes so he could figure out the best solution.

While on hold with the tech guy, I had an organizing revelation–an ‘a ha’ moment. Did I really want all 1000 emails in my Inbox? The answer was ‘No.’ If I were helping a client, I would have guided them to make the same choice. It would be like moving to a new home and taking everything with you even though you didn’t need it. I felt the time had come–this would be a good opportunity to ‘de-clutter’ my Inbox. A colossal purge.

To quote the song from Frozen, “Let it go…”

Although it took me a long time and the process still isn’t complete, I sorted through all 1000 emails and forwarded one-quarter of them to an alternate email account. Over the next few days, I’ll be forwarding them to my account and either filing them in a folder or taking action upon them. I purged old newsletters and correspondence. I’ll now be filing emails I had once lost track of. From now on, I’m going to do better by incorporating one of the most important steps in getting organized–maintenance.

Although Professional Organizers are fairly organized, we sometimes experience similar situations to our clients. It’s the old saying, “The shoemaker’s son has no shoes.” Sometimes we can’t keep up, either. And that’s OK. We’re human and so are you. Please take a moment to look through your Inbox. Delete a few emails. Create folders for others and remember–even Professional Organizers need to get organized!

Last month, I started blogging about products from a company called SMEAD. If you haven’t heard of them, just walk into your local office supply store and check the shelves. They create products for document management. If you have paper, you’ve probably seen or used one of their products.

In August, I talked about SMEAD’s ‘My Organizer’ Products/MO File System. Today, I’m going to give you a tour of another one of their helpful products…the Super Tab Folder.

Have you ever started filing your papers and realized you didn’t have enough room to write what you wanted to on the folder tab?  I know, I have. You can squeeze just so many words in a small space! I guess the people at SMEAD heard that complaint a million times and decided to do something about it.

Here is a photo of SMEAD’s Super tab folder. (The reflection is of my light fight fixture and of me taking the picture.)

This isn’t any ordinary file folder. When you open it up–it’s also a folder with two pockets! You may be asking–what is that doohickey is at the top of the folder?

That doohickey acts as a clamp to hold your papers in place while the folder is being carried or filed in your file cabinet. Here it is open:

With a stack of papers in it…

Every month I choose a new topic for my monthly Facebook Friday Tip-of-the-Week. February is Organize Your Home Office month. Every week I’ll be offering tips on how to get your home office organized whether it’s for a small business or a large family with Mom as CEO. If you haven’t ‘Liked’ or added Organized Artistry, Professional Organizing Services to your Page’s ‘Favorites’ yet, you can do it by clicking here. You’ll get my organizing tips in your News Feed every Friday!

While doing research for this month’s theme,I happened upon a great article by Lisa Kanarek of Working Naked. She is a nationally known home office expert, interior designer, and author who combines organizational and design skills to achieve functional home offices for her clients. The article is called,

5 Organizing Myths Keeping You from Getting Organized

Although the five myths discussed in the article are targeted to home office users, they can be applied to most organizing situations–kitchens, closets, paper, etc. If you’re struggling with organization in your home office or home, I recommend reviewing Lisa’s ideas and applying the knowledge to your particular situation. I think you’ll feel better about your organizing challenges and feel confident to move forward in meeting your home or home office organizing goals.