2 Ways To Increase Productivity In Your Home Office So You Can Get More Done In Less Time

1.    Keep it to bare essentials.  What I mean is  that permanent contents on the top of your desk should be kept to bare essentials, so that your desk always has a clean and organized look and feel.  When I say bare essentials, I really mean it.  Here’s what my desk consists of:  laptop, docking station, printer, fax, scanner, router, staple and tape dispensers, writing utensils, 2 pictures, 2 accessories, and some bragging items (more about that later).  That’s it.  And I have a decent size, U-shaped desk.  Everything else has either been discarded, moved, or hidden.  All reference binders are inside cabinets.  All customer and project folders are inside file drawers.  All samples and swatches are put away.

It’s ok to keep 2-3 feel-good things that make you smile.  For me, they are photographs of my wedding and of my baby.  One accessory is a small globe I received as a gift - it’s a reminder and an inspiration of the global vision for my business.  The other accessory is a small plaque with my favorite quote:  “Love the moment”.  Everything else is behind closed doors. 

During the course of the day, the only other things that belong on your desk are your calendar, to do list, and 1 folder on which you’re working.  Yes, you read it right, just 1 folder.  Not several on which you are planning to work later.  Just one, because you can effectively work on only 1 thing at a time (multitasking is one of my least favorite words)

So look around your office right now and see what can be taken away, cut down, and hidden.  You will be amazed how cleaning your desk increases your productivity.  Here are some examples of things to eliminate:

a.    Dry flowers

b.    Baskets of fill

c.    Mismatched frames of random art

d.    Knick knacks

e.    Multiple folders that you may or may not use on a daily basis

f.     In-basket

g.    Top-of-desk organizers

2.    Designate a home.  Everything in your office should have a permanent home, which is a place on your desk, in your drawers, or inside filing cabinets where things always go.  For example, if a designated home for your, say, envelopes is in the right-hand side back corner of the 2nd shelf in the top cabinet, than that’s where they should always go.  If a designated place for your, say, paperclips is a small bowl inside the top right-hand-side drawer, that’s where they should always go too.  No but’s or if’s about it. 

The home for every piece of paperwork is a file – just a simple manila folder.  The home for vendor catalogs and price lists is a binder.  You can easily store these away in a filing drawer and refer to them later.  This way, you don’t have to deal with piles of paper, wondering what to do with them, while they irritate you on a daily basis and drain your energy.

When I work with my clients 1-on-1 as part of my GET IT DONE Mentoring Program, this is one of the areas where we spend some time.  I help designers organize their businesses and mindsets by starting as small as organizing their desks, files, and physical environment, in which they operate every day.  This is so important because, if we are to operate at the top of our productivity, our surroundings need to energize us, not bring us down;  they need to support us in moving forward, not pull us back. 

Look at everything that you use on a daily basis and decide on the “home” for these things.  Having a home for everything you use not only makes you feel more organized and saves you time, but it clears up our head and energy to work on what’s really important to grow businesses.     

In my GET IT DONE Mentoring Program, my clients particularly like this rule, because it’s so simple and they can easily implement it.  Just remembering about it and catching yourself when you’re tempted to put something aside until later, is all it takes to make it work.  Just remember, all your tools, reference materials, supplies, and files must go back full circle to where their designated home is.