There are so many wonderful advantages to working at home. We have the flexibility of making our own schedules to suit our needs. However, some of the disadvantages, such as maintaining your own invoicing, filing, and correspondence, can lead to extra clutter. Work-at-home parents have enough to manage without the threat of being overtaken by out-of-control office piles.  But what can we do? Here are five tips to give you a jump start at tackling your office nightmare.

1. Break it down. Start with small projects like clearing the top of your desk or downsizing your bookshelf. Small steps will soon increase in momentum, leading to big changes in both the look of your office space and in your productivity. It may help to take on your most dreaded area first; you’ll feel a real sense of accomplishment when you’ve completed such a daunting task!

2. Put things away right away! Once you’ve cleaned and organized, you’ll want to keep your office neat. We always strive to maintain organization, but it’s so easy to fall back into old habits. Break these habits by putting things in their place and filing papers on a regular basis.

3. Maintain a routine. We all know that working at home is most effective when keep a regular schedule and avoid distractions, such as the television or laundry. That routine should extend to your office organization. Pick a fixed time each month or each quarter, depending on the needs of your business, to sort through files, maintain invoices, and check the progress of ongoing projects. Add these to-do’s to your calendar to be certain to keep them under control.

4. Create an inbox. Use a desk tray or basket designated to hold incoming paperwork. This will keep things neatly in one place, rather than strewn across the room. The most important part of such a system, however, is to process it daily. It is imperative that you pare down your paperwork by sorting through, filing, and discarding what is not needed in order to avoid the mess that you started with!

5. Don’t use so much paper! Cut down on your use of paper by saving items of interest to online bookmarks or in e-mail folders, rather than printing them out. You’ll save ink, trees, and effort by streamlining your paper usage.

These are just a few tips to get you started on your quest toward an organized office. For further resources, check out the productivity and organization pages at Zen Habits, a site dedicated to improving your life through better habits. You may also want to spend some time at Sparkplugging, which provides “work at home resources & community for the Web 2.0 generation.” Finally, a very handy online tool that is bound to save you time and clutter is 30 Boxes, where you can keep track of things like your to-do list, calendar, and important dates all in one place. The site also lets you share your information with “Buddies”, import information from other accounts like Twitter and Facebook, and gives you customizable reminders. We hope these tips and resources will be helpful to you in organizing your home office.