| 1. Be sure that everyone in your household understands how the space in your home office is to be used.
2. Pick a location that is favorable to conducting business. If possible, keep this area separate from your personal living space.
3. Pick comfortable furnishings and sufficient lighting that will reduce fatigue, discomfort, strain and injury.
4. Obtain stacking trays that are labeled for the following uses and put them in easy reach of where you sit:
a. Incoming– put the mail here until you open it.
b. Outgoing– for outgoing mail.
c. To file – for papers you want to file for future reference if they don’t require any action at this time.
5. Trim the F.A.T. – File, Act, Toss. Professional Organizer Barbara Hemphill tells us that these are essentially the only choices that we have when dealing with paper. 80% of what we receive we can toss.
6. Put a wastebasket near where you open your mail. This makes it easy to immediately toss what you don’t need to keep for action or reference.
7. Create a tickler file system and place all of your “action required” items in the system according to when you plan to act on it. (Click on title of this article for a resource for the tickler file.)
8. Create a system for easy retrieval of electronic files and for filing papers so you can find anything in 15 seconds or less.
9. Create archive files for papers you are legally required to keep or for files you rarely need to retrieve.
10. Use wall space for cabinets and shelving. You can store books, notebooks, magazines, and office supplies here.
11. Bonus Tip!! Use The Paper Tiger software - see article below.
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