Creating an Efficient and Effective Home Office

Working at Home Requires Discipline and Organization

In the last year, I have taken on this new lifestyle approach involving a "work at home" profession, or as it is more commonly known, telecommuting employment. While many Americans view working at home as a luxury, I, in fact, find it to be quite burdensome. With limited social contact and the constant barrage of family and home life around me, I've come to find that, without a proper home office set up, I will not succeed at my own work at home venture.

In establishing my home office, I first realized I must be organized and diligent in my approach. The key to working at home involves both self motivation and organization. When I created my home office, the first issue of concern was, unfortunately, space and organization. Before I was even ready to organize my area, I had already acquired my first assignment and was forced to jump right into work, ultimately leading to a huge pile of disarray in my work space area at home.

To clear up my home office clutter, I decided to first begin each day with a working session of two hours in which I allow myself to begin to de-clutter in an effort to motivate myself for the day. First, I begin by throwing away items which are of no value or use to me. In doing this, I begin to feel a sense of accomplishment as the piles of work and paper begin to dwindle and are sorted into sub-piles.

Once the purging of excess piles and paper is complete, I then spend a few moments writing one thank you or congratulation card to someone in the professional world. This is my way of networking to the world outside of my home and creating a social bond with other home office employees or individuals who may have, or will have, an impact on my life to some extent.

Upon completion of my gratitudes, purging and social networking of the day, I then begin to organize my office into a filing system; separating items into documents which should be filed, issues that are urgent and must be completed that day, as well as issues of non-urgent status, sorted by deadline. With this process, I glance at my calendar to prepare myself for events occurring in the next 48 hour period.