A mother’s corner office: next to the kitchen and the toys, hung with Mary Cassat prints for inspiration, drawers emptied of sharp things and permanent writing utensils, sticky fingerprints atop the desk. VIP (very important papers): school work, paintings and sunday school crafts.
Sometimes a change of scenery can make a huge difference in the day-to-day. When we moved into this house David suggested putting my desk in this little corner of the formal dining room next to the kitchen so he could reduce some of the traffic coming through his work space. I wasn’t sure this would work because in addition to homeschooling and my blog, I take the role of all administrative tasks that involve hard copies of paperwork (because I enjoy this greatly, while it brings David much annoyance) so I need space and access to things like printers and files!
I never would have thought I’d be more productive with my office in the middle of the house, but I have been! It makes a lot of sense now, considering that’s where everything that I’m managing actually happens.
Over the weeks this multi-purpose space has taken shape and as I have slowly migrated all of our office supplies down to my little corner. We have been able to find space for all of it and as a result I almost never need to go into David’s office.
Aside from the fact that papers get dealt with faster when they come straight to my desk, being in a spot next to the kitchen with toys for kids to play with while I work has made it possible for me to jump in and out of short administrative tasks whenever I need to.
I have been much better at planning, filing paperwork, posting blogs, looking up recipes (it’s so nice to read them off of my big iMac screen while I am doing prep in the kitchen) and lo and behold, getting to those little organization projects that have just seemed to roll over to my “goals” list year after year.
Storing things down here has been a little bit, um, strategic, but I have been able to fit everything that I need safely away from toddler height!
The lower levels of my shelving unintentionally turned into the perfect toy rotation area. Everyone loves a nice, big carpeted space to play on.
Here’s a little tour of my office corner. I told you I was going back to 2011!
Here are some of my goals!
-Organize saved school work into binders for each child by school year
-Organize saved art binders for each child by year
-Scan saved school work so we have a digital back-up
-Consolidate and organize digital photos by year
-Cull iPhone photos
Oh I have so many ideas of the nifty printed books I’ll make when all of these things are organized and scanned! I have started the school work binders and hope to have a finished project to blog next month!
