Writers Unbound

My home office is a space in the corner of my living room. My desk is about 2′ by 2′, as far as surface area goes. My paper processing systems consists of two wall-hung magazine racks and a pretty file box which sits on the floor by my (also pretty) trash can. This office doesn’t get a choice about efficiency: it’s all-efficient or die.

Efficiency gurus have a lot to say about systems and productivity, and streamlining, and time management. I won’t add to that load. Some of my systems work and some need to be tweaked. Some days I am far more productive than others. Some days time manages me… However, even on the worst days, my lack of productivity isn’t due to an inefficient office set-up.

I’ve learned that less is more, if the less that you have is what you really need and use. Yes, you need office supplies like paper clips and tape and maybe you do use those fluorescent labels, all four colors. But if it’s something you use, oh, once a month, don’t clutter up your daily work area with it (even if you have the room). Keep within arm’s reach only the items that see daily use, and put them where it makes the most sense for them to be, i.e., where your hand reaches automatically when you think “stapler” or “cell phone charger.”

Don’t box yourself into a standard-operating-procedure if it doesn’t work for you. Filing, for example, doesn’t work for me. Almost every organizing book I’ve read says that I should file my papers every single day. That would be the height of inefficiency, as my large filing cabinet is in the basement and I often need to use the same papers three times within a week or so before I’m done with them. So I set up my own standard operating procedure. I have a small file box at my feet that keeps things I use regularly for reference, and the most recent copies of larger projects. I have a couple of magazine racks hung on the wall that hold my notebook, calendar, a few folders with project notes and papers, a reference book or two, and a few magazines. I clean these out regularly; they cease to be efficient if they are loaded with papers that I don’t need.

The last point I’ll make regards location. I set up a nice office for myself in the basement of our home. I painted a long, fold-out table, set up the filing cabinet, gathered all the office supplies and organized them within arm’s reach, and had an inbox, an outbox, and a rolodex. I had plenty of space for a computer, a printer, and a notebook and a bunch of papers to be spread out on the table. I never felt crowded, but I just didn’t work there. I ended up at the kitchen table. Why? Because I’m a Mom of two small children. I don’t want to haul them down a flight of stairs every time I need to check my email. It was a good location but it wasn’t convenient for my lifestyle.

Now I work out of, literally, a fraction of that space I had set up downstairs. But the difference is that I actually work here. I don’t have as much stuff around, but I can start dinner, set the kids up with a few toys, and punch out a few paragraphs before going back to take dinner out of the oven. The bulk of my writing occurs in the wee hours of the morning and in the afternoon when the kids are sleeping, but those extra ten and twenty minutes here and there add up.

Make it a good day.