Office Closets An Organized Answer

Closets often become a central part of a home office - and far away from their original purpose. Every office deals with an excess of paper and whether large or small, your business is suffering when you aren't operating in an organized space. So, how do you clear the clutter and gain control?

The biggest problem with staying organized in an office is that people set up a system and don't give themselves enough room to grow.

If you have spent the better part of a day cleaning out a drawer and replacing the items in organized, labeled files, but you can't squeeze i a single extra sheet of paper you've wasted your time and the unfiled papers will grow again.

Be certain to have at least a quarter to a third (more if possible) of growing room when implementing a system. You may need to change over at some point, but having some extra space will encourage you to keep up with the organizing.

Set aside time to purge unnecessary documents. Not only will this provide more space but will save you time that would otherwise be wasted looking through worthless paperwork.

Do not make your system too complicated or it will be hard to follow through. Color coding can be the easiest if you do not have too many categories. This is effective for systems which only require 'Income', 'Expense', 'Projects', 'Correspondence' or something similar.

For filing of large groups of clients, projects or invoices, use a single drawer for each group of related files. The old 'socks and undies' shelves can even be divided into alphabetical or chronological systems.

A filing system is only as good as the upkeep. You may find it easier to have a small system of files located on or near your desk and daily or weekly transfer the items into their permanent home in your nearby closet.

This also works for items which you need close at hand such as current project information or price lists etc.

Consider if you can realistically maintain a filing system. Perhaps labeled boxes would suit you better (especially if you tend to pile papers). The key is to find something you will feel comfortable maintaining. If papers are sorted and occasionally purged, your system will work.