HOME OFFICE 101
March 10th, 2009 categories: Chicago Events, Lifestyle
Tax time–what a great opportunity to clean out, organize, and make your home office a great space to work–and maybe even to keep track of the 2009 receipts and other documents you will need for your 2009 tax return. If you can do that, you will be spared the stacks-on-floor sorting method that so many friends and associates use. And your next year’s taxes just might be a whole bunch easier. Here are a few thoughts concerning your home office.
- How many hours per week or day do you use it? Do you work from home or do you use your home office mostly for taking care of household bills? A small desk in the corner of a bedroom or the kitchen may be enough space.
- What are your technical requirements? Do you do a lot of research on the internet–do you have an endless supply of gadgets? You will need to be sure of your power source for everything from your computer to any other gadgets such as an iPod that you can’t live without.
- Do you also need to do use the home office room as a guest room? Can you convert a closet into a home office. My husband and I have done this and it works very well. We have a shelf that holds the monitor, keyboard and printer. There is a two drawer filing cabinet under the right side of the shelf. Shelving above is used for storing records, bank statements and office supplies. A small shelf just above our printer has the most used supplies, stapler, stamps, rubber bands, etc. We also have a TV and a fold-out bed in the room so we can use it as a den or a guest room.
- Now for the organization part. Probably a good idea to create categories. A tax file is one of the first files to start–for all the receipts, donations, proofs of purchase–all tax related expenses should be stored in one file with categories for the different types of expenses.
- Other files for special interests such as travel, restaurants, hobbies can be created to help organize that stack of clippings, e-mails, and notes that we all accumulate.
- Having a file drawer or two for all of this paper work is ideal but you can do it with one of those A to Z expandable files from the stationery store. Just put in individual folders for the different items.
Hopefully these ideas will help you avoid the frustration of the messy file folders in the picture–I do have more ideas on this subject. Call me at 312-981-2360 if you would like me to share.
Related articles: Record Keeping 101 For Homeowners, 12-08; Clean Your Closets–A Great New Year’s Resolution, 1-09
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