Your Office -- Cesspool or Zen-like Retreat -- You Choose!

Whether you work from your home exclusively, or only part of the time, the office in your home has to be tailor-made to suit you. If you are a brilliant scientist like Einstein and rather eccentric, you probably don't give a hoot how your office looks. If you fall into the 99.99% of the populace, like the rest of us, then office organization may be crucial as to how efficiently you can operate. We offer a few options for your consideration, like the late and brilliant Rod Serling used to say.

Get Your Butt Off Of There

· Choose a comfortable office chair. No one likes to work standing up. Bending over your computer will give you carpal tunnel syndrome sooner, rather than later.

· Try and get an ergonomic chair. If the thought of aiming for the seat of a chair that's shaped like a pretzel, disturbs you, then get an office chair that looks normal, but is comfortable. Maybe it's not esthetically pleasing, but who cares since you'll be sitting in it most of the time, anyway.

· Don't spend a lot, but spend just enough, on a good office chair. Choose fabric if you are in a hot climate or leather if it's going to get a lot of wear and tear. If you and the cat share space on the office chair, then make sure it's a big one. Especially if your cat weighs twenty pounds and is the size of a small cougar.

· Try a few chairs out if you can. Even if you're going to buy it off the internet, try some out in a store. They won't know you are just window shopping. Get an armless office chair, or one with little arms, unless you are a skinny person. Trying to move your elbows back and forth out of an office chair with arms, will rub you the wrong way.

Your Desk Should Be Flat On Top

· That may be stating the obvious but if you've been using a borrowed desk and the top looks like the San Andreas fault, then it's time enough to buy something like a Bush 66” Cherry Manager’s Desk for your home office.

· An L-shaped desk or one that fits into a corner is the best use of space in a room. Of course, if you live in a geodesic dome, then that would be impossible. A semi-circular desk would be wonderful in that type of space.

· How big do you need your desk to be? Maybe not as big as one that a king used to use in his home office, in Versailles. Not the size of Alice in Wonderland's desk, when she shrank down a bit. You want your desk to be big enough to work on, but not big enough that you can spread out your entire income tax papers for the last decade on it. Your wife or hubby would never find you, if that's the case.

· To be useful -- a desk has to have a flat top, four legs, and be not too big, but not too small either. That leaves a wide choice, so don't get too excited. Think about colour and style and what you'd like. You could be staring at that desk into the wee hours of the morning.

Up, Up and Away

· If your office is a former bedroom, then there's probably a decent sized closet in there. Put up a few shelves and perhaps stack some milk cartons and you can store your supplies and printer out of sight.

· Put up a few shelves on the wall over your desk. This is useful for arranging books and programs and paperclips and the occasional troll doll (nothing wrong with remembering the 1970s, is there?)

· Vertical files can hold magazines and file folders. Don't go crazy with vertical storage because it can get way out of hand. There are also file cabinets that look like furniture or you can even put a couple of plain ones that you bought at a garage sale under your desk and out of sight. This works if someone was a fan of The Rolling Stones or UFOs, but you are not.

· Use decorative craft trunks for storage. They also make an attractive bed for your cat. A real antique trunk would work as well but they can get rather large and awkward.

Lit Up, Tuned In, and Spaced Out

· Lights! Camera! Action! All three of those are useful in your home office, and will help organize it so it works for you.

· A camera for your computer may be crucial if you communicate with overseas clients, or even your Auntie Flo who lives in the next town over. There is a cheap international phone call service or two out there and most use a camera so you can turn it into a video phone system.

· Get a wireless, broadband internet connection if you can. There's nothing like the kids chasing each other right in the middle of an important chat session or email exchange. Wireless is great and your office won't look like a scene from the movie Brazil.

· Get yourself a radio station that you like, or stream one over your computer. Soothing (or disjointed if that's your mood) music helps you organize your thoughts.

· Lighting up your office life is crucial, You can't work on what you can't see. Don't scare your wife or hubby as they walk by and see you lit only by the eerie blue light of a few LEDs on the speakers or computer monitor. Track lights are fantastic because you can spot aim them and focus the light. They aren't very energy efficient so just use them when you're in there.

You are running a business. Customers are important, turnover is important, profits are important. But if profits are the ‘end’ then good office organization is the ‘means’ to that ‘end’. Get organized!