How to Create a Productive, Clutter-Free Home Office

If you’re like most work-at-home mums, it can be tricky to organise home office spaces and keep them tidy. While working from home is great, it often means sudden distractions and competing priorities. Cleaning up your home office sometimes takes a back seat, but it’s a vital step in boosting remote work productivity.

In this article, we’ll give you a few tips for how to keep your office clean and productivity levels high.

 

The benefits of an organised home office space

Everybody has different standards when they organise home office spaces. Some work-at-home mums want everything in precise order, while others don’t mind a little bit of mess. Ultimately, there’s no right or wrong way to tidy your office, it just has to be right for you. Here are some of the benefits to doing this.

 

Benefit #1: Improve your work productivity

If you’re comfortable in your home office, chances are, your remote work productivity will increase. You’ll feel better, experience less exposure to germs, and being clutter-free means you can always find what you’re looking for.

By removing some of the chaos and replacing it with calm and order, you can do a lot more with your time.

 

Benefit #2: Experience fewer distractions when working from home

If you’re like many people who work from home, mess creates a distraction. You see one thing, want to tidy it up, and all of a sudden, you’ve spent two hours cleaning instead of working!

Clutter creates constant distractions, so a tidy office allows you to concentrate more on work tasks. This concentration factor is important because it’s one of the biggest challenges for work-at-home mums.

The more you can focus on tasks, the faster you can complete them, which gives you more time at the end of the day to spend with your family.

 

Benefit #3: Create strong impressions on video calls

When you’re on a work-related video call, there’s an expectation of professionalism. If you’ve got a cluttered, messy office in the background of your Zoom calls, it could affect your professional image.

Maintaining a tidy office makes a much better impression on clients and colleagues.

 

Benefit #4: Create better indoor air quality for your office

Clutter typically leads to excess dust. This is because people don’t often bother dusting surfaces if they’re covered in items. As a result, the dust builds up and eventually becomes airborne, affecting your indoor air quality.

A clean office is also less likely to experience mould and other pollutants that damage the air you breathe.

 

Benefit #5: Improve your mood and stress less with a clean workspace

Unless you’re the type of person who thrives in a chaotic environment, you can improve your mood drastically by maintaining a clean workspace. If you spend a lot of time in the office each day, you want it to be warm, inviting and comfortable. Neatness typically makes you feel less stressed and improves the overall workday.

 

Tips for organising your home office

Want to know how to keep your home office neat, tidy and productive at all times? Believe it or not, it’s not as hard as it seems if you follow these tips.

 

Tip #1: Find a place for everything

You’ll know which office items you use the most, and it’s important to keep them easily accessible.

If everything in your home office has a designated place, there is essentially no need for clutter. Of course, it’s easier said than done, but by simply putting items back where they belong after using them, you’ll never have much clutter to clean up.

 

Tip #2: Invest in storage

All home offices are different, as are the types of work people can do from home.

While the paper office is largely a thing of the past in the digital age, you’ll likely still have some important documents. Invest in safe, secure storage for your important information.

However, it’s not just documents that require storage. Stationery, books, electrical devices and more can be stored out of sight to reduce clutter. If it’s not something you use every single day, it can be kept in an organised place for easy access when you need it.

 

Tip #3: Choose appropriate office furniture for your home office

Most home offices don’t need a lot of furniture, which is a good thing because more furniture usually means more clutter.

Think about the items you really need, and try to do without the things you don’t. Furniture takes up a lot of space, so always select the best office chair for the space available.

Your desk should also fit nicely in the home office without taking up too much room. Modern office equipment such as laptops take up far less space than old office computers, meaning your desk doesn’t need to be enormous.

 

Tip #4: Create a space in your home to relax

As a work-at-home mum, you probably won’t be locked in your office all day. Often, it’s a good idea to designate a separate area to take a break from work.

For example, if you like to sit in the garden to relax, hire a green waste removal expert to tidy up the area. If you prefer spending time in other parts of the house with the kids, make sure it’s as clutter-free as possible to make it more comfortable. You can remove unwanted household rubbish easily, giving you more space to enjoy your down-time.

 

Tip #5: Start a tidying up routine

If you’ve followed all of the steps above, you shouldn’t be making too much mess in your home office at all. With a place for everything, allowing five minutes at the end of the day to put things away helps your organise home office spaces more effectively.

Doing this ensures when you head to the home office tomorrow, you’ll be greeted with a neat, tidy area. With no morning clean-ups, you can get straight into work and experience better remote work productivity.

In addition to maintain a clean office, a regular tidying routine also helps you to check out of work for the day. Once your office is tidy, that signals the end of the workday and you can switch off for more meaningful family time.

 

Ready to start organising your home office?

Work-at home mums have plenty of competing priorities, which is why it’s so essential to maintain some order in your office. When you organise home office spaces with these tips, you can increase productivity, feel better, and enjoy more time with family. De-clutter your home office today, and start enjoying a far less stressful workday.