Google to the rescue!
Googling how to organize a home office works. I found an answer on "How Stuff Works" that will explain it to you if you have no idea where to start, but that's not my issue. I'm very organized, I have labels and bins, and magazine holders and file folders galore. What I need is to get rid of the old stuff, and set up a more efficient way for the paperwork to flow through this space.
Paperwork may be an oldfashioned way of organizing an office, but let's face it, some of us still get paperwork in the mail, and need a way to process this. The estatements are cool, and I write down every verification code they give me when I'm paying bills online. However, I have important, and not so important things that physically cross my desk and need to be organized. I have reviewed a fellow bloggers system and loved it! http://dawnathome.typepad.com/by_sun_and_candlelight/2009/06/the-care-feeding-of-the-file-crate-system.html She does file folders per week for everything and once a year in June she cleans them out and redoes for the next year. I thought long and hard about doing it this way, then decided it wasn't for me. I need to have an account specific file system. If I want to review say my tv satellite provider bills, I do not want to have to remember what week I received it in and try to hunt down the file. I realize and acknowledge that if you have ebills this would not be an issue. It's very tempting to try her system and have everything go electronic, but I'm still to scared to take the plunge. Plus, what in the heck would I do with the other 4 file drawers in my desk? Ok, enough with dragging my feet on this, let's get started.
First I need to look at the flow of my office, and what I don't like about it, then hatch a plan to fix it. This is how I took care of the problem of my OCD and my husband hanging up his hats on the post of the bed. Every night he'd hang his hat on a post, or his pants, (OMGoodness!!! I remember the pants were the last straw!) on the post of a beautiful four poster king size bed. When the grease and dirt form his clothes started rubbing off onto the beautiful wood, I pondered the dilema. The problem wasn't that my husband was using the bed as a clothing rack, the problem was that the bed was presenting itself to be a multifunctioning piece of furniture! So instead of getting mad and trying to change his patterned behavior, I took the ripsaw and cut the posts off the bed. See, problem solved, no more post, no more stress. I've since gotten rid of the bed altogether, but it actually worked out quite nicely and was beautiful in a new way. We downsized to a queen size bed, another one of my schemes, but a story for another day. Point is, I spend a lot of time at my desk, and I get a little freaked when people stand behind me or start digging in drawers especially when said digging boxes me in or squishes me. Remedy, I'm going to move the files to my outside drawer and then now one has to crowd me to get into it. Next, is the file system. Now I don't need the carboard file folders because for $8 at Sam's Club you can get a box of 50 hanging file folders.http://spaceforlivingos.com/2012/10/3-steps-to-organized-files.html. Here's my picture of today's accomplishment. All ready to go for the next year, and another plus to buying all those hanging files, I now have a sturdy empty box to put last years paperwork in. Oh, and store/misc receipts I simply put on one of these and then stick them in an envelope with the first date and the last date on it. Just in case...
Here's before & after:
A great start, don't give up, it has to hurt if it's to get better!
Yep my office exploded when I emptied some drawers! Don't be afraid, just break out the garbage bags!
With this mess created, it's time to bounce! See you tomorrow, in a cleaner office I hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment