Here's the link to the first thread of the year on this topic...

Home Office 1

I've been talking about this and talking about this for weeks lately and today might have to be the day I tackle my home office. It's reaching a point where I don't want to be in there which isn't good since I work from home. It's not tragic, just a bit cluttered and verging on being inefficient.

Sam, boy do I hear you on that one! I have started a reorganization on my office as well. Closing out old parts of my life and am getting into a new business venture with some very successful folks so clearing and reapportioning space for it too. Have managed to shred a 33 gal bag of papers to get rid of the personal info.

Went to the tax assessors office and presented my arguement for why property taxes should be dropped again, so there is one more pile of papers to file away for next years arguement, and two less piles of papers that have to be dealt with.

Paid a few bills today and filed that away, and will be spending the day here tomorrow.

Spring is a great time to clean out home offices...especially because you need to locate all of those pesky tax documents.

My three favorite tips for home office organization are:
Flip piles of papers over and start from the bottom. The stuff there is the oldest and least useful in most cases.

Scan! Its the best time to start a scanning system to digitally store your paperwork so you don't have to physically store it another year.

Make one change to the way you do things that you have been wanting to for a while. This could be painting a wall, changing the pictures in frames, changing what's on your desk versus in your supply cabinet etc. Then make a goal to do one small thing per month in the coming year.

I soooooo hear you on he changing one small thing. I bought some metal organizing units from ikea when I first moved in to my home 3 years ago. They are metal frames with 4 open baskets on runners. They have been in the office closet with excess office supplies gathered from over the years. Now is the time to get rid of them, the excess supplies I mean.

I am thinking that these will nicely slide into my master closet under the jackets to hold sweaters and other things, and also free up about a two plus wide area of office closet space.

Now that roomie has moved out, I know DBF and I will be spending more time at my place.

Okay, desk is clean. Just have to tackle wiring below.

Looking good Chef!!!

I look forward to when my office is in such good shape that I can post the pix as well!

Slowly I am getting rid of a few things, just not enough and definitely not fast enough for me.

I have committed this month to getting rid of the several projects that have been ongoing in the office so that once and for all, the remainder of the filing of old papers can be done and that will also clear up a lot of small clutter.

I also will be doing some reorganizing to make things flow better. Another project for this month is to get into that closet in the office and purge old papers I no longer use. That also extends to the numerous briefcases I own and need to thin out as well. The closet extends the length of one wall and is about 8 feet long. The goal is to get it half emptied at a minimum.

ChefSam, I've seen at office stores these "cord chases"... they mount to the underside of the desk, or to the wall, and you can run all the cords through, but still have access. For our setup, DH mounted our battery backup below the desktop, in its own little box, and ran all the equipment cords through a covered channel under the back of the desk, to that housing, so we have just the one cord from the wall.

Yes, unfortunately, there is a big jumble of cable wires/splitters under the desk that won't fit in them and that box into the wall is open. I'm going to have DH or my contractor build something for me to cover it.

Great set-up Chef! That chair looks powerful!

One cheap and simple solution to under-the-counter wire 'jungle,' are power bars which are easily affixed to the wall, above or below each outlet as you wish. Any extra lengths of wire are individually coiled; held in place with a velcro or plastic pull and 'hung' on tiny cup hooks to the underside of the counter. Easiest to access if you roughly draw-out a schematic. It's cost effective if you click off the power bar and end phantom power use.

A lot of people buy coils for wire control. The downside is the problem if you wish to change-out a piece of equipment or have a connection issue.

The cheapest way is to buy some simple pvc pipe and string the cords through. If you want it off the floor, put in some screws that have a loop on the end and another hook on the underside of the back of the desk.

not tons of progress to report. Working on bills today and 2 other projects so I can once and for all be done with them and also be able to the associated papers completely away.

Have managed in the process to shred a bag full of things no longer needed.