by Natalie Morey | Jun 21, 2023 | Home Office, Home Organisation, Office Organising, Tips, Virtual PA
It’s that time of year. The end of financial year is nearly here. That means it’s time to get your home office paperwork organised. So, here’s 15 ways to organise your home office. They won’t take you long, but I guarantee that if you take the time to do them you will transform your home office in no time at all.
15 ways to organise your home office
Tip 1: Start with your desk. Clear off any unnecessary items, sort through loose papers and create designated spaces for essentials like pens, notebooks and office supplies.
Tip 2: Tackle your filing system. Sort through old documents and create a system that works for you. Consider digitizing files to reduce paper clutter.
Tip 3: Organise your bookshelf. Donate or sell books you no longer need and arrange the remaining ones in a visually pleasing and accessible manner.
Tip 4: Create a designated space for incoming and outgoing mail. Set up trays or folders to sort and manage your mail effectively.
Tip 5: Assess your storage solutions. Optimize your storage by using bins, baskets or drawer organisers to keep items neat and easily accessible.
Tip 6: Declutter your computer desktop. Organise files and folders, delete unnecessary shortcuts and ensure your digital workspace is streamlined.
Tip 7: Focus on cable management. Use cable clips or cord organisers to keep cables and cords tidy and prevent them from becoming tangled.
Working From Home
Tip 8: Evaluate your office furniture. Determine if any furniture items are no longer serving a purpose and if so consider replacing or repurposing them.
Tip 9: Sort through office supplies. Discard dried-out pens, markers, or supplies you no longer use. Keep essentials neatly stored in containers or drawers.
Tip 10: Clear out outdated technology. Dispose of old gadgets, cables or electronic devices that are no longer functional or needed.
Tip 11: Declutter your bulletin board or whiteboard. Remove outdated notes or reminders and create a fresh, visually appealing space.
Tip 12: Evaluate your lighting situation. Ensure your workspace is well-lit with an appropriate desk lamp or overhead lighting.
Tip 13: Clean and organise your printer area. Remove any old or unused paper, refill ink or toner and create a designated spot for printing supplies.
Tip 14: Create a system for managing receipts and invoices. Consider using digital tools or apps to store and organise important financial documents.
Home Office Ideas
Tip 15: Evaluate your office decor. Remove any items that don’t inspire you or contribute to a productive environment. Add personal touches that bring you joy.
For more tips on getting ready for tax time read this blog. Or if you reed some help to get your home office paperwork organised, then contact us.
by Natalie Morey | Jul 20, 2021 | Declutter tips, Home Office, Home Organisation, Office Organising
Organising your paperwork for tax time can be a time-consuming and stressful at the best of times. But it’s a hundred times worse when your tax documents and receipts are scattered all over the place and in no logical order. So we have put together some tax time tips to help get you organised.
If you are still using the old shoe box storage system or if you have got receipts shoved in your wallet or worse still you have got no idea where they are, then it’s time to review your home office filing system.
Having a well-organised tax record filing system is the key to making the process a whole lot simpler, quicker and hassle-free.
Here’s our 8 tips to help get you organised.
Organising Your Paperwork for Tax Time. Image reference: www.kateknowleshome
1. Set up a filing system
Systems don’t need to be expensive or complicated. A 2-ring binder folder, simple colour-coded manila folders or a concertina file will work if you don’t have a filing cabinet.
2. Understand what you can claim
It’s a good idea to talk to a tax professional and get an idea of what expenses you can claim. This is especially important now if you’re working arrangements have changed (and let’s be honest, nearly all of us have had changed working arrangements in the last 12 months).
Have you purchased equipment so you can work from home – a laptop, desk items, stationery etc.? Find out what you can claim and ensure you have the receipts to prove it.
For more detailed information on what you may be able to claim, check with the ATO.
3. Organising for Tax Time – Decide on your categories
Possible income and expense categories might include:
Income
- PAYG Payment Summaries from your employers
- Interest earned on all bank accounts
- Dividends received on any shares you own
- Distributions paid from Trusts or Partnerships
- Rental income on your rental properties
Expenses
- Working from home expenses.
- Work car related expenses
- Work travel related expenses
- Other work related expenses, such as printing, subscriptions, stationery. Do note that they must relate specifically to your employment.
- Donations
- Education/professional development expenses
- Cost of managing your tax affairs, ie your accountant’s fee for preparing your tax return
4. Collect all the paperwork scattered around the house
You know the ones that have been put in your car, shoved in your wallet, your jacket pocket, in your bedside table or some other random spot.
5. Just do it – Once
Papers don’t file themselves. Set time aside to do this. The best option is to file an item away as soon as you receive it. If you cannot do that, set aside a few minutes each week or month to do this. Perhaps make the last day of each month the day when you will do this. Then, you will avoid a big pile of paperwork and emails to file at the end of tax time.
6. Go Digital – Tax Time Tip
Don’t want papers and files sitting around. Then perhaps its time to go digital. Create folders on your computer and in your inbox so you can file electronic receipts, invoices, bank statements and other digital tax-related documents in the appropriate folders as soon as you receive them.
There are some great apps and online programs like Xero or Myob if you need something more specialised.
Organising Your Paperwork for Tax Time: image source: homebunch.com
7. The problem with paper
Apart from the clutter that it causes, the other issues with paper records is that once they’re gone, they’re gone. Paper receipts fade and accidents happen. The best way to store receipts these days is electronically. Take a photo and keep it on your phone or laptop or get an app to keep all your receipts in the cloud. Just make sure you set up an online filing and file it logically, so you can find it.
8. Book that appointment
Now that your organising for Tax Time is done and all your paperwork is organised logically in one spot, it won’t take long to pull it all together. So book that appointment with your accountant and get your tax done. And hopefully, now that you have all your receipts together, you might get a nice refund too.
Running A Business From Home
Running a business from home and need some extra support, setting up XERO or Myob, imputing data or lodging your BAS statements. We work with a great company who can manage all your accounting requirements. Just contact us for more information about them.
Need some help organising your paperwork for tax time? Then contact us. We love organising paperwork and home offices.
by Natalie Morey | May 2, 2017 | Declutter tips, Home Organisation
When did you make the time to declutter your books? If you’re like me, I’m tipping it hasn’t been recently.
Declutter your books
Declutter your books in 5 easy steps.
When your books start to build up and create clutter on your bookshelves, bedside table or book shelves its time to declutter. So here’s 5 steps to help make the process of decluttering your books easier.
Set time aside to declutter your books.
You need to set designated time aside if you want to declutter any space. If you don’t have an hour, then just allocate 10 or 15 minutes and don’t stop till the time is up. Just remember though, once you have culled and decluttered your book shelve, bundle the books up ready to be dropped off (also set a date by which they must be dropped off). If you only have 10 or 15 minutes for a declutter session, then also make sure you set yourself a goal as to when you want to have the entire book shelve decluttered.
One shelf at a time.
Like any declutter project you need to start small. So in this instance when you are decluttering your book shelf, start decluttering one shelve at a time. Work from the top down. And if they are spilling out onto the floor, then that is the best place to start your declutter.
Will you really read it again?
I know myself, I had a heap of books that I was never going to read again. So I decided it was time to clear the clutter and let go. With any decluttering that you do, maximum impact is made when you can let go of more items. Plus, it is so much easier to organise and style a book shelve that is not jam packed with books. So keep that in mind with you when you start your declutter.
Why are you keeping those books anyway?
I realised that I was keeping a heap of my old university books. Why? I think it was because of all the memories that they brought back. But the reality was, I was never going to use my Macro Economics book again (I hated the subject then and my opinion has not changed), so why was a keeping it, so they had to go. Declutter and be gone!
Declutter your books and donate.
Feel good about decluttering your books by donating them to someone who can use them. I recently did a declutter for a client and we donated books that were in very good condition to her local library. The library then sold the books and used the money to buy more books.
Other places to donate books to include:
http://www.brotherhoodbooks.org.au/donate/
https://www.footpathlibrary.org/contact-us/ they have branches in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth.
The Lifestylers Group provides decluttering assistance in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth. For assistance with any declutter project (the kitchen, bedroom, office, wardrobes, garage) contact us.
Image credit: http://bliss-athome.com/about/
by Natalie Morey | Jun 8, 2016 | Declutter tips, Home Office, Home Organisation, Office Organising, Tips
This month it’s all about gorgeous home office storage ideas and looks. Forget drab and go for some of these fab storage ideas and products for your home office. In no time you will have a super stylish and functional office space that will actually inspire you to want to spend time in there. Then, there will be no excuse to get all your paper work sorted for the tax man.
Home office organising and storage – Image credit: Officeworks
A light, bright and white home office
This white trestle desk is definitely the statement piece in this minimalist workspace. Achieve the look with this customisable trestle desktop and legs for less than $100. Love it all? All the furniture, the lamp, and the photo frame packs come in at $658 from Officeworks.
The perfectly organised home office -Image credit: Office Works
A bold home office space
A black workspace is a bold move, but it definitely sets a get-it-done attitude. The floor lamps will bring much needed brightness to this space and are a great affordable alternative to pendant lights, which require installation by a qualified electrician. Opting for wood-look furniture will not only add light and warmth, but will keep your budget in check.
Using these picks, you could create the look for $385 – which includes two each of the light oak magazine files and vintage document boxes.
Classic white home office – Image credit: Kikki-k
Go for the classic uncluttered look
As a professional organiser, I just love this look from Kikki-k. Its uncluttered and functional. You could also easily add a single draw filing cabinet under the desk to give you some more storage space if required. You could also add some pops of colour by changing the colour of the storage product that’s sitting on the desk.
Home office storage
Gorgeous home office storage ideas
Check out these storage ideas from Kikki-k. They will help keep your desk uncluttered and organised and they look great too.
Based in Melbourne and assisting clients in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth, The Lifestylers Group is a professional organising service that helps people organise there homes, home offices and lives. With over 10 years experience, we have seen it all before. We have lots of practical tips and advise that we share with our clients to organise there office or home office.
by Natalie Morey | Nov 26, 2012 | Declutter tips, Home Office, Home Organisation, Office Organising, Tips
Christmas Organising
Now is the perfect time to get organised and make sure you write and mail your Christmas cards this year. Getting your Christmas cards out on time, only takes a little bit of forward planning, so what are you waiting for.
Tips To Get You Organised
Here are some of our key tips on making sure your Christmas cards get mailed this year.
- Type up your Christmas card list and keep it in a safe place so that you can refer to it (to add or delete names) year after year. I also put an asterisk next to any overseas addresses, as a reminder to post their card early.
- I find the easiest way to manage my Christmas Card list is in Excel. That way I can mail merge and print off addresses directly onto labels. You can also print directly onto the envelope, which saves you not only time but also the cost of the label.
- Create your own “return to sender labels” using labels purchased from Office Works. I have used http://www.coastallabels.com.au before and they were very quick and well priced. Also check out: https://www.thatsmine.com.au
- Set a date and plan to write your Christmas cards in the last week of November, because otherwise Christmas day will be here before you know it and that pile of blank Christmas cards will still be sitting on your desk.
- Christmas cards with ‘card only’ marked on the envelope can be posted at a reduced rate during November and December.
- Overseas mail at Christmas time takes longer to arrive. Plan ahead and arrange to send cards or presents in early to mid November, to avoid disappointments (and the very long queues at the post office).
- For great savings, buy Christmas cards, wrapping paper, ribbons and decorations at post-Christmas sales – you would be amazed how much you can save.
Until next time, happy organising.
Natalie Morey, Professional Organiser.
