Practical ideas for organizing home office paperwork

Organizing home office paperwork can be a real challenge. We shall help you with some practical ideas which will help you. When you work at home it is most likely that you have a small desk with a laptop or computer in your house, or even a separate room dedicated and equipped as a home office. Either way you should keep in mind that you need to immediately integrate work issues and documents into your home office system. Solving the problems of organizing a home office includes organizing incoming documents, organizing contact information, organizing password storage, organizing files, etc. Home office wall organization systems are a great help yet paperwork needs special attention.

Organizing home office paperwork – where to start from?

How to store documents at home? There are many different ideas for organizing home office paperwork but the main goal is that everything is kept in order. Otherwise, a lot of time will be spent on searching a particular document, invoice, letter, etc. Organizing home office papers has its own characteristics. Like with personal documents, paperwork should be protected from damage. If children live in the house, then the documents must be kept in a way that they are not accessible to them.

Step 1 – Sort your paperwork and create categories

One of the most important steps in organizing home office papers is sorting. Put all documents in front of you and sort them according to their purpose. They are mainly divided into business papers, various contracts, invoices for payment, bank documents, letters and so on. Sort them in categories. You can create your own categories, for example, Finance, Banks, Contracts, Clients (by name), etc. Subcategorizing is also important. Each of the categories may contain different files. For example, the pile of contracts can be divided into “suppliers”, “Distributors”, “Clients”, “Buyers”, etc. and everyone gets his own separate folder.When sorting your paperwork you need to think whether you need to keep this paper, will you use it in the future and do you have a place for it? Color coding is a helpful trick for organizing home office paperwork. You can choose a different color for each major category of paperwork and then put each of its subcategories into an individual file folder.

Step 2 – Throw away everything that you do not need

Throw away any papers that you no longer need unless you keep an archive. Having them scanned sounds like a good idea, right? Anyway, you need to check the rules for keeping hard copies of documents before throwing away. However, junk mail, advertising catalogues, advertising brochures, documents for which the storage period has expired – all of these have no place in your files! It is best if you shred all documents that contain personal or confidential information.

Step 3 – Separate and label the documents

Once you created your categories, subcategories and you cleaned everything that you do not need, it is time for organizing home office paperwork. Make a label for each of the categories then place the paperwork into the corresponding folder. For example – invoices, contracts, bills, receipts, paychecks, etc. It is understandable that separating and filing home office papers every day is practically impossible. Placing a tray on your desk for paperwork that needs to be filed is a great idea that will help you not miss anything. At the end of the week you can place all papers into the relevant folders. In this way you will reduce clutter and will stay organized!

Storage and organization ideas for your home office papers

There you are – you organized all your home office paperwork and it is time to think of storage.

Home office wall organization systems offer many ideas for storage of documents and paperwork. You can istall shelves and pockets into a cabinet and in addition to organized paperwork your home office will always look neat and tidy.

Filing cabinets are the obvious option as they are designed for storing paperwork and documents. A filing cabinet and a category system will help you keep everything well-ordered in the long run.

Lidded file boxes and stackable plastic bins are another option. Hanging holders installed on a wall offer the advantage to save valuable desk space. Wire baskets help keep things visible and every type of document can be easily seen and sorted.

The market offers modular wall organizers, letter trays, cardboard containers, etc. so you will definitely be able to create your own efficient system for organizing and storing home office papers.