Organizing Your Small Home Office

If you are like us, there really just isn't a lot of extra space in your house - especially for things like a home office.  Because of limited space we have to be creative about how we use every inch - especially for things like paperwork, mail, office supplies, etc.  Those things can take over your home quickly if you let it - and I'm speaking from experience here.  I have absolutely loved taking a little time during each week to start getting our whole house organized.  For us, we decided to take it a little bit at a time - so we wouldn't get overwhelmed and just give up.  This has been the best way for us - we are actually getting organized and so far have really stuck with it.  Its been easy - way easier than expected.  So today I wanted to show you our completed "home office" - which is really a little desk area in our kitchen.  Its now organized and ready to actually be of use instead of being avoided.

So lets go back for a minute and remember the original state of this deak - it was a disaster.  The mail and paperwork runneth over.  I got to work by emptying everything out and sorting through all of the paperwork and little items that were shoved in.  You can find my post on sorting through the piles of clutter here.

Now all of the shoved in paper work has order and has been filed away in a pretty file box - which gave tons of space for actual office type supplies like envelopes, notebooks, clips, etc.

I'm so excited about this desk now - I like to just walk by and open it every now and again just to look at all the organized goodness.  Oh, I also lined the bottom with some scrap book paper and ended up painting a few places inside the desk, just to pretty it up a bit.

Another part of this task was also to clear out and organize the little drawer.  It was filled with junk - just like most drawers in our house (but we are working on it!)  Here's the before and after:

Just like the top, everything was cleared out and sorted through.  Some things were thrown away because it was just junk, some things were returned to its proper place and some things went back in.  I found some pretty wrapping paper (Target) to line the drawer with and some interlocking trays (from Homegoods) to organize everything when it went back in.

Another addition was this mail sorter for the top of the desk.  One section is for incoming mail and one is for outgoing.  I found the little notebook and mail sorter at Homegoods as well.  The notebook was $2 and the mail sorter was $5.99 - not much of an investment for something that will be a huge game changer for us.

I love that you can find pretty office and organization supplies these days.

Well, I think we can call this project complete for now.  For under $20 and a few hours time we now have a functional, organized and pretty home office space.  I.love.this.

I'm linking up with Jen at I Heart Organizing and her Home Office Challenge.  Jen is like the queen of organization, I love her blog and have gotten a ton of inspiration and ideas from her.  If you have been on the organization wave like me, you should definitely go check her out!!

Thanks for stopping by today!   I hope everyone has been safe as the strong storms have come through.  Have a great day!  

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Home Office Organization - Sorting, Files & Clutter

The organization crusades of 2013 are up and running and I have a little update to share today.  So far, we have conquered our kitchen junk drawer and I have been getting my craft supplies in order and today I have begun work on our home office space.  Now, let me stop there for a minute - a small house = no home office space - so when I say home office, for us that means a little desk in the kitchen and a few small spaces that we designate for certain things (most of which we are creating now).  So because of limited space we have to get kind of creative as to how we organize and manage some things.  I honestly haven't really spent much time thinking about this until now - so its a work in progress for me.

I am pretty much starting from scratch in the form of home office organization - its pretty bad really but we are making great strides.  First up in the battle is our little secretary desk that sits in our kitchen - it was a complete wreck and a place that I was pretty much avoiding due to over stuffing and clutter.  Here it is in all of its glory...

First thing I had to do was just get everything out and then come up with a sorting system to get it all in order.

I used some extra storage bins I have to use as sorting stations for all the the paperwork, bills, etc that we had shoved in the desk.  I also had a bag for trash (which there was a lot of).

I also sorted out all of the little knick knacky things and instead of waiting until later to worry about it I immediately began to put away everything that didn't belong in the desk to its rightful spot.  This is so essential in getting organized...make it a no procrastinating zone while you are working.

Just so you can see that I did have a spot for everything - here ya go.  The "keep" things are going back into the desk and everything else went to its correct location.

Ok, back to the paperwork.  Since we don't really have a home office room or very much space I wanted to keep our filing system simple, easy and functional.  Since this is all new territory for us, just getting something in place like this is huge - maybe it will develop into a great system down the road but I'm ok with this for now.  

So I found these pretty files at Target and a pretty magazine file at Office Max and started there.  After I had sorted through all of the paperwork I gave each paper pile a file folder and label - making sure to file away in date order - woohoo for organization!   All of these file folders are filled with items that we might need easy access to and also will need to be quickly filed away.

Oh, I used some washi tape for the labels, a cute little trick that Jen from I heart Organizing shared on her blog.  I love that it makes it pretty (i'm all about that) and the washi tape is easily removable so if you need to change out a file its easy to do.

Ok, so not the most exciting project, but a long overdue one.  The feeling you get from de-cluttering and organizing really is so great - and the fact that you can make it pretty and fun is just an added bonus.  This job was a little more time consuming than our junk drawer but well worth it - honestly it was one of those, I wish I had done this a long time ago things.

I have more organizing to do in our desk and office areas so I will share them soon!  Happy Organizing!!

Have a wonderful weekend!!

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