How to Organize a Home Office or Writing Desk

Whether you use your home office writing desk as your full-time workspace or to pay bills and correspond with loved ones, it can quickly become chaotic and disordered. Not only will having a clean, organized home office desk increase your productivity; it will lower your stress level as well. Once you know where to begin and have a goal in mind, you will have a tidy desk with everything in its place. Take a look below to learn how to organize a home office desk.

Organizing Your Desk:

1. Take out the trash. Bring a wastebasket and at least two cardboard boxes into your home office. Remove everything from the desk, considering each item as you take it off the desk. Toss obvious trash into the wastebasket. (You may want an extra box to hold things you want to shred.) Place items that belong in another room or that you want to give away in another box. Set the items you need to keep in your home office in the other box.
   
2. Find places for desk necessities. Set your day planner or organizer on your desk so that you can quickly and easily use it. If you use a desk calendar, a desk lamp or a telephone in your home office, place those on your home office desk as well. Select your favorite writing utensil and place that on your desk along with a notepad. Everything else should be stored and organized out of sight.
   
3. Organize office supplies. Select one drawer in which to organize your office supplies, such as pens, pencils, staplers and tape. Most office desks have a small, narrow drawer near the top that is ideal for these supplies. If your office desk doesn't, you can use a drawer organizer in one of the narrower drawers to neatly contain these items.
   
4. Go through the filing drawers. Take the time to go through filing drawers in your home office desk. Shred any documents that are no longer necessary. Label the file folders alphabetically or categorically. For example, you may want to make a file folder labeled "Utility Bills" and another labeled "Receipts."
   
5. Deal with wires. Organize the wires behind your desk by bundling them together with small Velcro straps. You can also use cable ties, rubber bands or even hair ties to keep the wires in your home office from becoming a tangled mess.

 I found this article at Overstock.com.