If you are a telecommuter you have a lot of freedom compared to your co-workers who have to commute to and from the office on a daily basis. You can stay in bed a little bit longer or you could quit work a little earlier in the afternoon due to the fact that you don’t have a commute. Another advantage of having a home office is that you can furnish and configure it any way that you desire. Granted, you are the one who has to shell out the money to buy your furniture and accessories, but you don’t have anyone telling you what type of office chair, desk, or office accessories that you can purchase.

If you have a home office you have challenges that your co-workers in their office cubicles do not have. One challenge is that you don’t want your office paperwork to end up elsewhere in your home. Another challenge is that you have to constantly be diligent to prevent any paperwork or other items from the other rooms of your house from cluttering up your home office. Apart from a chair and a desk, one item that should be a priority in your home office is a filing cabinet.

A model that is perfectly suitable for a home office is a 4 drawer file cabinet. Due to the many drawers available, you have the option of breaking up your various file folders into the different drawers based on specific categories that you identify. One mistake that a lot of home workers make is to place the file cabinet on the other side of the room from the desk. What happens, as a result, is that file folders will tend to be left throughout the office. If you keep your file cabinet within arm’s reach of your desk or where you are situated throughout the day, they will tend to be put back in the file cabinet after they are used. A filing cabinet, when used correctly, will help keep paperwork off of your desk or other areas of your office, and organized properly in a contained unit. Being able to place your fingers on what you need when you need it is the definition of organization. Without a filing cabinet paperwork will be stacked on desks or in bookshelves with no rhyme or reason.

Another accessory that should be purchased for the home office is an office paper shredder. If you want to stay on top of clutter in your office this is an office accessory you must have. There are so many models available and what you buy depends on what you really need. If you just want to minimize your clutter then a strip cut shredder is the cheapest alternative. This type of shredder simply cuts the paper into strips. If you are concerned with identity theft then a strip cut shredder is not the model that you should buy. A cross cut shredder is more along the lines of what you are looking for since a cross cut shredder will slice up a piece of regular size paper into approximately 400 pieces. This model will also allow you to destroy media such as CDs or DVDs as well. If you want to even step it up from there a micro cut shredder will cut a piece of paper into approximately 3600 pieces or 9 times as fine as a cross cut shredder. Whatever option you choose, a paper shredder will allow you to minimize that office clutter. You just have to be diligent in using it on a regular basis.

Conquering clutter in the home office requires a specific mindset of not allowing paperwork to build up in areas that lead to a cluttered workspace. Investing in a file cabinet and paper shredder will be two wise decisions that will help you win the clutter battle in your personal home office.