The Organised Housewife » Tips, ideas, inspiration and motivation to help keep you and your household clean and organised

Masthead header
May 02 2012

Organising the home office – Where to start

Category: Office • Organising

During May, on The Organised Housewife, we will be organising the home office.  

This has been one of the most requested topics for me to write about and I am so excited to be sharing my ideas with you and getting my office properly organised too.  I look around and I see chaos.  However, it is organised chaos. I know where everything is, there are piles of paper to file on top of the filing cabinet, inboxes that are filled with papers I need to deal with, my cork board has more than it should have pinned on it, a mirror that is homeless and I have exercise equipment sitting in the corner which really doesn’t need to belong in here.

But what I do have under control is our finances (I should do because hubby is an accountant), I have a great system in sorting our bills and receipts, warranty booklets, electronics cables are sorted tidily, kids drawings have a home, drawers are organised and the cupboard boxes are all labelled.  I will discuss each in more detail through the month.

I know where everything is, however the office seems to be the last place that I make sure is organised, I’m being lazy. Instead I should be spending that extra 30 seconds dealing with the paper instead of putting it on top of the filing cabinet to file later and putting the kids drawing directly in their ‘home’ rather than leaving them on my desk to pile up.  Paper clutter is my weakness.

What is your weakness?  

What is making your office messy?

What doesn’t belong in your office?

If we don’t determine now what our weakness is you will finish this month with a tidy workspace and then a month after your weakness will start to show again.  Lets work through it!

Here is my big mission for the month… hubby’s side of the office (don’t tell him I’m showing this, he will be horrified).   He has been working very long hours and studying, having a tidy desk isn’t his priority right now, and that’s OK, I’ll give him a hand. 

 

Love these ideas? Sign up for updates....It's FREE!
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

  • Mummabear

    Yes I need help in this department. Ours has become a dumping ground. Life is busy so the piles mount up. Definitely need a new system and make it a functional room again. Ours is quite small, off the main bedroom….I would love to clear the desk and space and be set up and inspired to write and study in there. It’s a great space and has a pretty outlook out the window…no more excuses – May is the month for me!

  • http://twitter.com/heyLisaWarren Lisa Warren

    Seriously, you should see my office! I can’t even make out the shape of the desk at the moment. That room just hasn’t been a priority for me for the longest time and it shows.

    • http://www.theorganisedhousewife.com.au Katrina

      Well then this is the challenge for you then Lisa!!

  • http://twitter.com/norlinm Norlin Mustapha

    My weakness is things coming in and piling up the moment I clear my desk! I have to be strict with myself and put the things that come in RIGHT AWAY instead of letting them sit there for a while.

    • http://www.theorganisedhousewife.com.au Katrina

      and it really only takes an extra few seconds to put it in the right place, I think it’s just all in our minds at times.

  • Tmbrew71

    Paperwork is definitely my kryptonite

  • http://www.thethingsidtellyou.com/ Melissa Mitchell

    Yep. This is ours as well. And we aren’t as organised as you with our finances. HAS to change. Time to start being grown ups about it all.

    • http://www.theorganisedhousewife.com.au Katrina

      Great way of thinking Melissa, because if you don’t look after it nobody will.

  • Chantelle

    At the front of my filing cabinet, I have a manilla folder called the Lazy Folder…where I put the paperwork that needs to be filed. How lazy is that? It would take almost no more time, to actually file it where it needs to go. Somehow I have managed to convince myself that it is efficient, because once a month or so, I file them all at once. Oh dear!

    • http://www.theorganisedhousewife.com.au Katrina

      Chantelle, that is too funny. Well, at the moment I think it is better than my pile ontop of the filing cabinet, so you do get a star for your lazy folder!!

  • Lisa

    It would be nice to have a system that didn’t fall over the minute we got busy or sick. This seems to be when it all comes undone and ends up costing you so much more. Would love to know what you keep in your Home Organising folder Katrina!

  • Ripper

    Omg even ur mess is organized. My mess is just mess and i try ever so hard to follow ur steps to organization but it is a very very slow process.

  • http://www.facebook.com/Filmgirlgail Gail Jelley Field

    Ha ha ha – I just took a picture of my office saying I was going to tackle it this very evening but as hubby is away I’m going with cuppa, sofa, tv remote and ipad to play on instead, but I will be very interested in following it. My office is like your hubbies. I will see if I can attach the photo I took.

  • Jen S

    Beautiful study! I am a bit jealous as I don’t have a study or a desk at home but I guess it’s not essential for me as I don’t work from home anymore. We have a 2 drawer filing cabinet in our walk-in-robe for bills etc and a 3 drawer unit for our kid’s art etc. Paperwork usually stays on the bench in a plastic 2 shelf organiser (like yours) until it is dealt with and then makes it’s way to the filing cabinet – which is way overdue for culling (Question: how long do you need to keep things for?). Yes we usually have a messy bench I guess, although I am trying to spend a few minutes de-cluttering it everyday. I tuck the organiser away if someone visits ; )

  • http://www.declutteringandmore.com/ Multi-Bligging Mum

    well I look forward to following this topic.. I don’t have an office but I crave for one. Instead I have an area in the dining room that is my office area.
    I do have room for an office area in either the tv room that is the kids area or perhaps need to quick smartly finish the rumpus room and make my office there… But i do attempt to clean my area but I fail at paper mess… I re-homed the filing cabinet as it was full of um junk!!
    So I’ll be watching this closely!!

  • Robyn Stew

    Oh me oh my: my weekness. You might better say my weaknesses as there’s barely a square inch of desk visible of my desk. In fact it could be purely a hovering mass of papers. That extra 30 seconds to deal with said paper is rarely possible in the moment it’s thrown at the in tray. I feel as if what’s more relevant to me is being able to get back to it and have places for all of those things that pile up on my desk — even the ones that don’t *really* need to be kept at all. ;o)
    Thanks for the help, either way.

  • Dianna Bray

    We are in at the begining of extending our house. With the new extension it frees up a room for me to have as a home office. At the moment, my formal dining room is my dumping ground for all my stuff, including our 2 laptops and cords.
    I have in my head how I want my home office to be set up but I am very much looking forward to your tips and suggestions.
    I already have a filing cabinet that is well organised but I want to set up the room to not only include bills etc but all my wrapping paper, craft items (both mine and the kids) and all those other miscellaneous items that seem to get accumlated through out the house.
    Looking forward to this topic.

  • http://twitter.com/StuffWithThing Marita

    Paperwork is my weakness too. I’m trying to conquer it.

    • http://www.theorganisedhousewife.com.au Katrina

      We will get there together Marita!!

  • Amie

    I love the doll on your husband’s desk, lol!!

    • http://www.theorganisedhousewife.com.au Katrina

      Yes, her head is broken, it’s there to get fixed :)

  • Bridget

    Our study is getting a huge cleanup and it feels great to achieve the impossible.  Thge computer desk is clear of clutter now and I slowly working through the rest of the room.  Hubby will get such a surprise when he returns and I am loving the achievement of clearing the dumping ground of our house!

    • http://www.theorganisedhousewife.com.au Katrina

      I bet you will feel so good when entering this space, good on you for making the start!!

  • Pingback: Getting Home Life Organized and a Personal Planner Giveaway | Mm is for me's blog

  • http://www.facebook.com/jane.toohey.5 Jane Toohey

    I’m starting your Home Office organistation (how’s that for a clever spelling mistake!). At the moment, my partner has the office all to himself and my laptop floats around the house from the bedroom to the couch and often on the dining table. I am a mature age student who has very recently finished a teaching degree but am now working on a spec ed diploma. The office is chock full of ‘stuff’. Teaching stuff, uni stuff, homehandyman stuff, office (accounts and finance) stuff and heaps and heaps of other ‘stuff’, and all this stuff is stuffing up me being able to move in there too. Our desk is a dining table and I plan for both of us to share this. the good things about our office – lots and lots of shelves, the large dining table/desk, and great lighting. The not-so-good, the ‘other’ stuff!

  • http://www.facebook.com/jane.toohey.5 Jane Toohey

    Oh, and my partner is a full-time student (psych) how uses the office ALL THE BLOODY TIME! Jx

  • Natalie

    Great topic! But please please please I need help with knowing what I should be filing and what is truly not really necessary. I mean, bank statements, why am I keeping them? What are the tax rules for keeping things of an ordinary household nature? How old is too old for bills and paper records? I reckon I could halve the volume in my filing cabinet if I knew what it was that could go!

  • Sophie

    I really need to get a handle on my office mess, it’s horrible. It’s the one room in the house that has everything in it, which doesn’t fit anywhere else. It’s become a dumping ground for my husband but our filing is somewhat organised, so that’s something! We don’t have much storage in this house and it shows… I just wish my baby would relax and let me get n with things instead of crying every time I put him down!