Organize Your Home Office Cool Tools and Easy Tips to Keep Your Work Space Tidy

The folks at Forrester Research report that about 34 million Americans worked from home occasionally. They predict the number will be nearly double by 2016. That’s a lot of cluttered dining room tables, over-stuffed cubby holes and jam-packed spare bedrooms. Here are some home office ideas, gadgets and tips to help you organize your residential workspace. If you have some of your own or any home office design inspirations, please share them!

Go ahead and write on the walls. Ideapaint Writable Wall Paint turns any wall into a dry erase board. It comes in white, black or clear coat to go over any color. It’s a little pricey, but a $225 can will cover 50 square feet (compare that to a standard 6’x4’ dry board that runs about $185 wholesale). This would be great for a kid’s room, too. See it and more trendy home office ideas at The Coolist.

Copy holders are so 1970. Here’s a stand that holds things upright without clunky clips. The Justick uses 4 AA batteries to create an electro-adhesive bond that anything flat will stick to. The batteries are supposed to last about 18 months. Justick is available for under $30 from Solutions.com.

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Are your files and home office supplies eating your precious floor space? The Inspired Room has several clever ways to conceal your stuff and create a little extra space. For example, a skirted table or shelf can hide file drawers and bins.

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Kind of creepy, but your keyboard could be the dirtiest surface in your home. Try a flexible silicone models like this backlit one from WetKeys. There’s no trashed if you dump a cup of coffee on it. It’s easy to clean and disinfect. And it rolls up. All that for around $30.00.

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I hate cords and cables. I love things that help me manage them. All the better if they don’t add to the ugliness. Cabledrops are pretty cool. They hold cords up to 5/16” and come in a variety of colors. The only downside is that the peel and stick backing is permanent, so you can’t move them around. They retail on Amazon for around $10 for a six pack.

The Desk Daisy elevates the lowly paper clip into a pretty flower arrangement. The 7” plant includes 30 petal-shaped clips that attach to the magnetic, bendable stems and retails for around $10. See it and other essential home office gadgets at Inc.com.

One of 20 Home Office Organizing Tricks from Real Simple, these PileSmart binder clips come with erasable labels so you can easily keep loose papers together by category. A perfect solution for those of us who’d rather stack than file. They’re about $4 for a six-pack at Amazon.

And finally, file these three tips under Totally Free:

• Repurpose plastic ice cube trays as desk drawer organizers.
• Arrange all your desk top essentials (stapler, tape, scissors, notepads, etc.) on a tray. It will look tidier and it’s a whole lot easier to clean when all you have to do is pick up the tray instead a bunch of individual items.
• Make your own sticky notes out of scrap paper using repositionable glue sticks. It’s a good rainy-day project for the kids.