My home office is my sanctuary… my place to be creative and productive… my place to focus on my customers and projects. It’s also, how do I put this, a stinking mess. Yes friends, I’m not exactly the most organized person in the world from a clutter point of view. While I can remember WEP keys from wireless installs I did six months ago, I’m not disciplined enough to keep my desk from turning into a wasteland of catalogs, CDs, scribbled notes, trade mags and manuals. Did I mention this cabling chaos? I really envy those who successfully manage their IT clutter.

My office is in the basement of my townhome… and it still has the original cheap carpeting. Man, how I detest that carpeting. I had to get one of those clear plastic chair mats for my office chair to roll properly. And over time, our two cats have had their share of mishaps on the carpeting, so it has some mustiness to it. It’s time for the carpeting to go away. So now I’m poised to have some new laminate flooring installed, not as swanky as natural wood flooring, but nice looking and very durable. We got a great deal on the laminate, which is stacked on the floor awaiting installation.

I’ve been looking forward to this with both dread and excitement. Excitement because that nasty carpeting will be gone, the dread is because I have to completely empty out the space for the installers. I’ve already begun to pitch a lot of random bric-a-brac. When the time comes, I will have to pretty much unplug all of my stuff, take apart my desk and put everything out in the garage (the electronics will stay inside). They tell me the installation will take just a single day. I am trying to look at this as an opportunity to really clean up my act.

When the flooring is done and I can put stuff back together, I plan to take a new approach to my desk setup, from wiring to placement and ergonomics. My old office chair is on its last legs (ha!), so I have a very nice replacement sitting in the garage ready to go. I’ll re-think my storage (both the PC kind, and they physical kind). I’ll use all the tricks I can to minimize cable clutter (velcro cable wraps and plastic cable ties) and maximize usable desktop surface. My goal is to have an area that I always keep clutter free, so that I can gave a writing surface, which will also double as a work surface for when I do PC repairs. I’m also going to reposition my phone and headset so they are easier to read and reach. Finally, I’ll make the most of my four-port IOGear KVM switch so I can keep all my various machines running off a single keyboard, mouse, and monitor.

It’s going to be a lot of work - and this is the kind of work I have a hard time motivating myself to do. But once I start it, I know I’ll follow through. The results will certainly be worth the efforts… I can picture it in my head. Wish me luck. When all is said and done, I’ll try to post some photos.

[tags]office,sanctuary,redecorating,pc repairs,carpet[/tags]