Organizing Your Home Office

Introduction

Many people find working at home is a wonderful way of having a career but cutting down on the expenses of childcare, commuting, lunches out, etc. More and more people are starting to bring their office work into the home. Whereas there are many advantages to working at home, it is important to have a good home office set up to support your every success.

Your Physical Space

It is important to have a quiet place to work that is out of the general “family” area. This is important for several reasons including limiting distractions, protecting confidential client information, and letting family understand that you are only available for emergencies during your regular office hours.

Decorating your office is personal choice but some helpful pointers are as follows:

Do not use bright colors
Don’t use too dark colors
Less is more- don’t overdo it with pictures, etc.
Keep the space as open as possible
Have plenty of desk space, tables, shelves, and filing cabinets

Some may ask why color choice is a big deal for the home office. Very vivid bright colors are too distracting and very colors are sleep inducing. It is best to choose muted pale colors such as shades of green, pale yellow, muted blues, etc.
You also do not want a cluttered office, so the less furniture, pictures, etc, the better. It’s okay to give your home office a “homey” feel, but remember this is your work space and you want to keep it professional. Also, do not add a lot of extra chairs or places to sit in your office because this encourages family and friends to “take a seat and stay awhile.”

It’s important to have a nice large clean desk. Don’t allow your desk to become cluttered with papers, folders, and other office supplies. Have a specific place for everything. Files should be kept in a locking file cabinet. You should have a shelving unit or cabinet for extra office supplies such as printer paper, ink, pens, paper clips, etc.


Organizing Your Home Computer

It is optimal to have a work only computer and an extra computer for family or individual use. If this is not possible, be sure to password protect important files and folders. Do regular system maintenance checks at least monthly which include: defragmenting your hard drive, clearing your cookies, deleting your Internet history, and running a spyware program to remove spyware from your computer.

Organizing Your Desk/ Office Supplies

Whereas some people seem to work fine in what appears to others to be utter confusion and disarray, but the majority of us find that a clean, neat, tidy environment lends itself to more efficient work, lessens stress, and assists with thinking that is more creative. Plus, let’s be honest, you can find things easier!

Have you ever worked really hard on something and then you go to print it out and you’ve either run out of paper or printer ink? There is nothing more frustrating or time consuming then having to stop what you are doing, get out of the groove, and go to the office supply store. It’s important to have plenty of printer paper, ink cartridges, pens, paper clips, staples, file folders, index tabs, and any other office supplies that you use on a regular basis. Have these items neatly organized on a shelving unit or cabinet and take inventory weekly to decide what you need to stock up on.

Securing Your Office

It is important to protect your client’s confidential files and information. It doesn’t cost much to have a lock for your home office door. Lock your office when you are done for the day. Have a spare key hidden in your home somewhere so that you do not lock yourself out of your own office! Also, do use other security measures as well such as having locking file cabinets, password protecting client files, and folders on your computer, and not letting important papers just lay loosely on your desk.

Your Home Office Telephone

It is just the professional thing to do to have a separate business line in your home where you will accept incoming business related calls and where you will make outgoing business calls. Providers like Vonage make having a business line inexpensive and easy. You should have a professional sounding voicemail greeting on your telephone and the telephone should be placed where you can easily access it. If you need to move around your office while on the phone then it is wise to get a high quality cordless telephone. Do not let family or friends ever answer your home business telephone line.

Office Ergonomics

Not enough can be said about investing in a good quality comfortable office chair. If you are going to be sitting for 8 hours a day, it is imperative to have a comfortable well made office chair. If you look online there are many in the $200 range that are very nice. Whatever chair you get should be rated for 8 hours plus usage a day, and should fully adjustable.

Also, if you type a lot, it would be a wise idea to invest in an ergonomic keyboard and to buy a second board as a back up. It is so easy to break a keyboard if you use it 8 hours everyday, and once you get used to an ergonomic board, it can be very difficult to type fast on anything else. There are many well priced ergonomic boards available. Before buying one, make sure to read the reviews on it to make sure that it doesn’t have a lot of problems and to see if others liked the board.

Also, if you tend toward carpal tunnel syndrome, it might be a good idea to buy a pair of compression typing gloves to assist in alleviating pressure on the ulnar nerve that causes carpal tunnel pain and inflammation. You should also use a mouse pad and ergonomic mouse. Additionally, computer monitors now come in a variety of sizes and the larger ones tend to be better on your eyes. Also, anti-glare and flat screen monitors tend to assist against eye strain as well.

Conclusion

Working at home is a wonderful opportunity to save money on childcare, commuting, and other expenses. It is rewarding to have the flexibility of working at home and to be have more control over your own work day. Being organized is key to your ultimate success. Take time to go through your office and to organize things and make it tidy and comfortable.


Margery Hinman, CMT, is CEO and Director of MT Advantage Career Center, a highly specialized interactive medical transcription training program that combines computer-based training with hands-on personalized feedback from certified instructors. A 25+ year veteran of medical transcription, Margery owned and sold two successful medical transcription services and does consulting for medical transcription service owners and educational institutions. Visit www.mtacc.net and find out why some are calling MT Advantage Career Center the #1 premier medical transcription training program in the country.