It can be difficult to stay productive in a home office; after all, there’s no threat of a boss looking over your shoulder to make sure you’re on task. You need to stay organized and motivated to get things done on your own, and minimizing distractions is key. Organizational guru Liz Davenport recommends turning your home office into a “cockpit office” in order to stay focused. This means keeping only the tools and files you use on a regular basis within arms reach; everything else can be filed away.

Everything you use daily should be within immediate reach on your desk. Everything you use weekly should be within an arms reach. If you haven’t used something in a month or more, store it in another part of your office, where you have to retrieve it by getting up from your desk. This type of organization means you almost never have to interrupt your workflow to get day-to-day work done. Davenport claims that every time you leave your desk you will be gone an average of 20 minutes – and you may not even return with what you were looking for in the first place. Minimizing distractions and maximizing the usefulness of items you need most is just one of many great home office ideas that can help you work more effectively from a home based business.