6 Easy Ways to Increase Your Productivity When Working from Home - By: Heidi DeCoux

Keeping a home office organized can be a special challenge. After all, we eat, sleep, relax, and interact with our families at home, and all of these pleasant but un-business-like activities can spill over into our offices and cause organization problems. If the area where you work is disorganized, your productivity tends to suffer. Here are six tips for creating and maintaining an orderly, productive home office workspace.

1. Set boundaries: It’s important to keep your home office distinct from the rest of your home and to keep all unrelated activities outside it. If you can turn an entirely separate room into an office, this will be relatively easy. But if you can only devote a certain section of a room to your office activities, keep that section separate by drawing an imaginary square around it, and keep everything unrelated to work out of the square.

2. Stock your office with the basics: For most types of businesses, these are:
• A telephone
• A notepad for jotting down notes and making to-do lists
• A trash can, a can for recycling, and a paper shredder
• A drawer or some other container for of writing implements, paper clips, clamps, post-it notes, scissors, and a stapler
• A file cabinet or file drawers with hanging and tab file folders
• A clock and a timer

3. Can the clutter: Clutter has a subtle but profound effect on us: it depresses us and reduces productivity. So if it’s not directly useful for your work, get it out of your workspace! If documents, books, and other materials pile up on your horizontal surfaces, take a few minutes each day to clear and sort them.

4. Set up an efficient filing system: Can you locate any paper or file that you need in 30 seconds or less? For peak efficiency, you should be able to. The papers that you need to take action on right away should be in a filing system designed to bring them to your attention automatically, right when you need to handle them. That way you won’t lose or forget documents, or miss a deadline—and you can focus on your main tasks without worrying about whether you should be taking action on some important paper lying buried in a heap on your desk.
My Fast-Filing Method home office filing system , works this way, and guarantees you will be able to find any paper in 30 seconds or less.

5. Take breaks: Some time away from your home office in the middle of the day—preferably outdoors—can actually boost your productivity by renewing your body and your mind. Why not eat lunch in your yard or on your porch or deck for a bit of sunshine and vitamin D? It’ll improve your mood and sharpen your thinking.

6. Use a timer: Timers keep you focused by giving you mini-deadlines. Determine how much time you want to spend on a specific activity, such as reading and answering e-mail or returning phone calls, and set your timer accordingly. When you hear the bell or buzzer, wrap up and move on. Soon you’ll find that your awareness of your timer-deadline is forcing you to prioritize, work more efficiently, and get the job done more quickly. Eventually you’ll be spending less time on low-priority busy work and more on the really important tasks.

About the Author

Heidi is a professional organizer specializing in organizing paperwork , creator of The Fast-Filing Method home filing system, & publisher of Life Made Simple e-Magazine. She energizes her readers’ lives by teaching effective systems to help you accomplish more in less time! Visit ClearSimpleLiving.com to get a complimentary subscription & a FREE Home Organization Kit.

Article Directory Source: http://www.articlerich.com/profile/Heidi-DeCoux/106643

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