With school starting back up here in a few weeks for me, I thought that I would touch on a few things that I am going to be doing to try to be productive in my new apartment for the coming year. I really want to try and keep my room organized because my bedroom is also my office. I have a great friend who has an extra room in a townhouse that she is renting and has agreed to let me run my eBay office out of that, so this will automatically drop the clutter in my room and apartment in general by 60%+…so I am happy about that, and so is my roommate!
Anyway, MindPetals had a great post not too long ago about a do-it-yourself dry erase board. Brett at StartupStudents read the post and actually made it happen, showing a few pictures on his recent “Field Trip Friday†post. He was even nice enough to include some pictures of putting it together and the final product, nice work Brett! Next, I am looking at getting a bigger filing cabinet. I currently have a nice corner desk from Office Depot that has one drawer in it that I use for filing everything business related, however, I need more space! I may look at cheaper alternatives to buying an actual filing cabinet such as crates that will let you use hanging folders with them. A filing system offers the ability to be nicely organized and keep everything straight. FreelanceSwitch recently had a post on 9 tips to get organized with a filing cabinet.
The final thing that I will be doing is keeping my cords organized behind my computer and desk. Brett has a good idea on his post where he uses zip-ties and puts the cords, plugs, and surge protector onto a piece of peg board and sits it behind his desk. It neatly keeps everything off of the floor. Although I do not think that I will be taking it this far, I am going to try and keep all the cords neatly organized and only the length that they have to be to reach the plug or computer. What are your home office tips? Got any pictures of yours? Once I get back to school in a few weeks and everything settles, I’ll post up some pictures of what I have done.
This was funny, when my partners and I were looking for a filing cabinet for our business, we got lucky and stumbled upon a huge one that our apartment complex was dumping. I saw it next to the dumpster, grabbed my car, and picked it up, haha. Saved $100+!!
Excellent, second hand stores and liquidation are always great places to check out as well besdies the dumpsters! Its always neat to look at what people are throwing out at the end of a school semester when they have to move out.
I forgot to mention, see if your school has a surplus site. At UF, they provide this and we can pick up old office furniture/equipment. Check it out here: http://www.surplus.ufl.edu/
I think the same folks that provide the service to UF offers it to other schools. Good luck!