Take a hard look at how your office is arranged and put your organizational skills to work setting it up to maximize efficiency.
Consider the principles that are used when designing a kitchen. The refrigerator, sink, countertop, and stove are generally located so they can be easily reached from a single location, because the act of cooking requires moving back and forth among these four spots. Put the same concept to work in your home office, taking steps to ensure that the items you use the most often are easily accessible most of the time. For example:
- Place the telephone where you can reach it easily from your computer.
- Store extra paper where you can easily reach it from the printer, fax, and copy machines.
- Keep outgoing mail in a container by the door so that you will be more likely to remember to pick it up when you are on your way out of the office.
- Place books and binders that you will use frequently on the bookshelves in your office at eye level.
- Store items that you don't expect to use very often on the highest and lowest shelves
- Don't allow stacks of paper to build up on your work surfaces.
Think about what you do each day and arrange your working environment in a manner that is well suited for the way you work.
