Home office storage and organization requires a bit of work, but it’s a necessary investment if you want to have a collected, calm and easy-to-navigate space. To ensure that your home office is as organized as well as it can be, consider the following tips.

Assign Everything a Home

The first key to an organized office space is to ensure that everything down to the last paperclip has a “home” in the office. Bins, organizing totes and cabinets are your friends here. If you find you have a lot of loose items floating around, pick up a few more bins and start tucking them away. Once everything is corralled, you can store your supplies on shelves or in closets appropriately.

Make Use of Vertical Space

One oft-neglected source of additional office storage is the vertical space. Walls are a perfect place for floating shelves or shelving units for your books, decorations or space materials. Be creative with your placement of shelves — corners are great nooks for specially-made corner shelves, while the gap above your door is just perfect for showing off your collection of knick-knacks or houseplants.

Design a Dedicated Outbox

From work that needs to be returned to the office, to bills to be mailed, to permission slips to be returned to school, every office needs an outbox to collect the papers that endlessly collect on your desk. Consider a stacked outbox so you can categorize each type of item and ensure it winds up in the right place instead of getting lost in the shuffle.

Kick Clutter to the Curb

The daily preventative maintenance of wrangling unnecessary items and putting them in their rightful place can seem like an endless battle against the second law of thermodynamics. However, it is a necessary evil if you wish to preserve the effects of all your hard work. At the end of each day, collect any clutter that has accumulated in your office and return it to its rightful place. If you regularly find items from other household members wind up taking up residence in your home office, consider employing a “crap basket” system to help everyone take responsibility for their own gear.

Keeping a well-organized home office is a labor of love, but the results are worth it. With a little bit of time and energy, you can ensure that your office is a clean, welcoming space for all of your projects.