With the freshness of new flower buds and spring greenery brightening up the outdoors, now is the perfect time to take a look around your home office with a fresh eye. During the long, gray days of winter, it’s easy to let your mystery shopping paperwork get piled sky-high on your desk. But now that spring is here, it is the perfect time to clear away the clutter that winter has left behind and give your home office a thorough spring cleaning. Here are some great tips to help you get your mystery shopping home office clutter-free this spring and to keep it clutter-free throughout the rest of the year:
Get Organized! Stress and clutter go hand-in-hand. The stacks of papers on your desk can be more than an eyesore. Clutter can make it difficult to find papers when you need them, can cause you more easily misplace or even altogether lose important documents like expense receipts and assignment requirements, and slow you down making you a less efficient (and thus less profitable) mystery shopper. Now is the perfect time to sit down and sort through that stack of papers and any other clutter that has accumulated on your desk over the last few months. Take the time to file away important papers that you need to keep, and toss papers that you just don’t need any more.
File Time! With the papers you don’t need taken off your desk and tossed in the trash, you are left with a stack of papers that needs to be filed away. If you don’t have a file system in place right now, or if your old file system is out-dated, take the time to make yourself some new file folders. You will be able to get that stack of important papers off of your work away and filed away where they won’t get lost. Not only that, but you will now have an easy-to-use filing system that will make it easier for you to quickly file away all of your new and important papers from future assignments in coming months. Consider separate files for “Assignments To Be Completed”, “Waiting For Payment”, and “Paid”.
Update Your Home Office. As you go through your home office sorting through papers and cleaning, take some time to also ensure that everything is in proper working order. Make a list of anything you need to keep your home office running smoothly, such as new toner for your printer, another ream of printer paper, paper clips, staples, and so on. If you have been thinking it would be nice to have a highlighter, calculator, or other items, but just haven’t gotten around to getting those items yet, put all of your needs and wants on a list and head to the office supply store down the street. Think about all of the things that will help to make your time working in your home office more productive as you write your list.
There is nothing more refreshing that working in an clean, organized, and well-stocked home office! Take some time to give your home office the spring cleaning it deserves this year!