No-Clutter Zone When you can't afford to waste time, you can't afford to be disorganized. Need any more incentive to straighten up your home office?

Are you wasting more than one month each year working in aninefficient home office? If you waste just one hour a day, fivedays a week, at the end of the year, you'll have wasted morethan 32 eight-hour days. Whether you've just recently openedyour homebased business or have spent many years working from home,an inefficient home office can waste your time, stunt your businessgrowth and reduce your cash flow. Before you spend one more day (ormonth) looking for lost items, fighting with an office arrangementthat you've outgrown or adding more unread magazines to analready towering stack, stop what you're doing and considermaking a few changes.

Location, Location

Perhaps you started your homebased business in any old spot inyour home, just to get going. Now it's time to settle into amore strategic location. Designate an area in your home, whetherit's a spare bedroom, a room above your garage or space in yourdining room, that can best be used as your office. Keep the areaclear of nonbusiness-related items and handle only work-relatedtasks in this area. Although a particular room may seem ideal foryour office at first glance, consider whether it's a placewhere you can maintain your productivity, keep track of papersrelated to your business and, more important, work with minimalinterruptions.

Decide whether a particular room is worth spending the moneynecessary to convert it to a home office. For example, you may wantto install phone lines or hire a contractor to set up betterlighting and ventilation. Think long-term. It's better toinvest in improving the right location than to settle for a spacethat costs less but will no longer suit your needs in a year ortwo.

Easy Pieces

One advantage to working from home is that your furnitureoptions are limited only by your budget, rather than by corporatetradition. Space within a home office is often confined, making thechoice of a huge, traditional desk impossible. Fortunately, thereare several ways to furnish your office and design it for maximumefficiency.

Take a close look at the furniture you already own, anddetermine what's missing. Do you have enough filing space,drawer space or room to spread out while working? If not, decidewhich parts of your current setup aren't working and add moreshelves, work surfaces or additional drawers.

Is your computer equipment resting on an old dining room tableor a computer desk that no longer accommodates all the technologyyou've since acquired? A good option is a computer stand with ahutch to hold all your equipment that also leaves you with surfaceroom for writing or temporarily storing information you need toenter in your computer.

If you need to keep your work space compact and unobtrusive, usean armoire to store your computer and other electronic equipment.Then when you're finished working for the day, close your"office doors."

Before you buy any piece of furniture, check it carefully forquality. Look for sturdy pieces with reliable hinges and drawerglides. You may be tempted to buy "bargain" items, but beaware, you may end up replacing that same item several timesbecause it falls apart easily. When shopping, remember the oldproverb "You get what you pay for." Homebased businessowners now have the option of purchasing high-quality, affordablefurniture that comes already assembled (a big plus for those of uswith limited assembly skills). On the other hand, don't spendthousands of dollars on furniture that looks impressive, yet lacksenough storage and work space. Keep in mind that function is morecrucial than appearance.

Perfect Arrangements

When setting up your office, consider three basic layouts: the Ushape, the L shape and the parallel layout. The U-shaped work area,the ideal of the three, allows you to keep everything within reachon three surfaces. The L-shaped work area offers the importantadvantage of getting equipment off your desk and onto a secondarysurface, without taking up as much room as the U. With the parallellayout, one surface is placed opposite the other, still giving youtwo surfaces of work space.

The arrangement you choose depends primarily on the size of youroffice, the type of furniture you have and how much work surfaceyou need. Keep in mind that if someone else is sharing your office,you may be limited in the type of arrangement you can use.

Don't place your computer in front of a window. The glarewill be hard on your eyes. Make sure your computer screen is eitherfacing a wall without a window or at a right angle to a window.

If you must place your computer in front of a window, make sureyou have curtains or blinds that will block the outside light whileyou're looking at your monitor.

Remember to allow space for opening a file cabinet drawer--aboutan additional 24 inches. The cabinet itself may fit in a convenientspace next to your shelves, but it will be useless if you can'topen the drawer all the way.

The Right Stuff

Equipping your office with the right technology will help youincrease your productivity. However, the technology in your office,whether it's a PC, printer, fax machine or other electronicequipment, is only as effective as the person using it, and it cancreate organizational challenges. If you keep too much informationstored on your computer, get in the habit of purging your harddrive the same way you would the papers in your file cabinets. Ifyou know you'll never refer to a document again, dump it. Ifyou don't, you'll waste too much time searching throughunnecessary documents.

Don't wait until your computer crashes to think aboutbacking up your data. One of the best purchases you can make is areliable backup system. You can choose between removable mediadrives or external hard drives. If you don't back up your data,you'll waste endless hours attempting to recreate theinformation and you'll inevitably lose valuable data. Equipmentis easy to replace; data is not.

Buy the highest quality printer you can afford. It's easy tospend more money on your computer and skimp on your printer, yetconsider that clients will probably see only the correspondence orother documents you generate, not the computer (or the office) fromwhich you generate such materials. Whether you're preparing aproposal, newsletter or four-color brochure, it's important togive your clients the highest quality printouts you can afford.

When faxing documents, include on your cover page a brief listof everything you're sending in case the entire fax is nottransmitted. This also serves as a record of what you faxed.Remember, if you have a thermal paper fax machine and want to savea particular fax, you must photocopy it before it fades. A plainpaper fax machine is a good alternative to buying several pieces ofequipment. Some models allow you to make copies and also serve asprinters and scanners.

Information Overload

Putting a piece of paper in a file folder is easy; finding itagain is the hard part. There are ways to make your files easier touse and your papers easier to find. Invest in a sturdy, four-drawerfile cabinet. Spend the extra money it takes to get quality anddurability. You'll spend more money replacing a cheaper filecabinet a few times than buying a reliable one in the beginning.You may not have enough files to fill the cabinet now, but believeme, you'll need it in the future.

Before you buy additional cabinets, weed out unnecessary files.The natural tendency is to buy more cabinets to hold the papersyou've accumulated. The more filing space you have, however,the more tendency you have to keep unnecessary papers.

Keep the number of hanging file folders you use to a minimum.Rather than putting only one interior folder in each hangingfolder, group three to five interior folders in each one and labelthe hanging folder with the main category.

Minimize your paper files by using a scanner to store themelectronically. There are hand-held, sheet-fed, flatbed and opticalpen scanners available. You can even use a scanner to enterbusiness cards into a contact management software program.

Designate one place in your office for magazines, newspapers andany other publications you don't need to read right away.Select another place for papers that need to be filed. Stackingbins--they're larger than stacking trays and have legs--keeppapers to file and papers to read separated, yet in close proximityto each other. You could also use wicker baskets near your desk tohold these materials. The point is to keep this inactiveinformation off your desk and keep you focused on more importanttasks.

You don't have to spend a fortune or a lifetime organizingyour homebased business. Take the time to select the right locationfor your home office and evaluate whether your current furnitureand setup is meeting your needs. Then design your office so you canfind information quickly, and create a filing system that reducesthe time you spend searching for important papers.

Disorganization can cause lost time and money and eventually maycause you to lose sight of the reason you started your business inthe first place: to enjoy what you do each day.

Take Five

1. The only items you need to keep on your desk are the ones youuse daily or weekly. Anything else is excess clutter. When yourdesk is clear, you'll spend less time searching for an openspace to work, leaving you more time to do what you need to do.

2. Stacking trays are a good tool for organizing incoming andoutgoing paperwork. However, they only work if you take time eachday to clear your "in" tray and put papers in your"out" tray. If you don't have an assistant, take afew minutes to clear your out tray by the end of each day.

3. If you're left-handed, keep your phone on the right-handside of your desk, and vice versa, to avoid trying to write over aphone cord.

4. Think vertically, and add shelves near your desk. Use theseshelves for the items you use less often, including a three-holepunch, extra supplies or reference materials.

5. Organize the items in your desk drawers by using drawerdividers. They'll keep everything separated, saving you timespent looking for the items you need. You can use productsspecifically designed for drawers or ordinary silverware trays tokeep your supplies divided.

Case Studies

Case Study #1: Suzanne Passman

The owner of two Dallas homebased businesses--one offeringbrokerage services for employee benefits and the other,administrative support--Suzanne Passman had the ideal office spacein her loft. But she wanted to make the space more efficient.

First, we rearranged two downstairs closets to make room for theclothes and shoes she had been storing in the loft and moved theitems accordingly. When we finished, she had closet room to spare.Then we moved an antique buffet from her family room to her loftand placed it behind her new computer table (which replaced her olddesk). We moved the file cabinet containing personal files to theother side of the room next to a couch table used to assemblemarketing kits, and switched her personal desk from a space infront of a window to an empty wall to bring more light into theroom.

Passman uses the buffet to store extra supplies, computerdocuments and manuals, and her current files; and her two-drawerfile cabinet for business reference files. She prefers to store amajority of her files electronically, and therefore needs less filecabinet space. We replaced her stiff dining room chair with onethat swivels and rolls, offers back support and is adjustable.Finally, we put several out-of-control cords in a single tube,added "in" and "to file" stacking trays andplaced a spiral notebook next to her phone for messages.

Case Study #2: Bill Vick

President of Recruiters OnLine Network, a virtual network ofrecruiting, employment and search firms worldwide, Bill Vick facedan organizational challenge that is becoming all too common forbusiness owners: too much equipment. Vick's computers, faxmachine, video camera, printer and other technological necessitieswere taking over his office and creating a tangled web of cords. Heneeded to store this equipment efficiently, while still keeping itaccessible. The solution? We consolidated all the equipment intohis closet.

Vick had converted a closet that was too small for storage intoa work area with counter space, shelves and overhead lighting. Hehad purchased a custom-designed desk/conference table and placed itto the left of the closet and added a long table to the right,forming a U shape.

First, we removed a PC that Vick no longer uses from the closetwork space and replaced it with the PC he uses daily, then purgedknickknacks from his main work space. We put his printer on theshelf above the PC and moved his phone routing and answering systemfrom the table on the right to a shelf below and to the right ofhis computer. The best place for his phone was above his phonesystem, which handles nine incoming lines. When he replaces hisheadset, Vick will move his phone next to the answering system,leaving the headset next to his computer.

Vick uses his laptop and scanner primarily while traveling, buthe occasionally uses it in the office. We moved both the laptop andscanner to the table on the right, leaving Vick plenty of space tospread out his papers while working. We put all the cords into longplastic tubes. We solved Vick's frustrating problem of where toput incoming and outgoing papers by moving a rolling cart that waspreviously under his desk to the space between his table and closetwork space. Vick calls his new work area his "communicationscenter."

Lisa Kanarek is a nationally recognized home officeorganizing expert and the author of Organizing Your Home OfficeFor Success, Everything's Organized and 101 Home OfficeSuccess Secrets. Visit her Web site at www.everythingsorganized.com.