Your home office is where you manage your household’s most important financial, medical and educational documents and more.

But no matter your home office’s official use, you can’t get much done in there if it’s a cluttered mess. It is said that a disorganized and cluttered office can reduce your productivity and fog your creativity.

One of the reasons why home offices get so cluttered is that their owners either refuse or don’t take the time to throw things away. Take a few minutes to purge your office of everything you’re no longer using.

Here are some things you need to toss and some suggestions on the right time to do it:

• Pens that no longer work
• Paper clips that are bent out of shape
• Old magazines and newspapers
• Unused or broken office equipment, including old phones, computers, and printers/scanners(you can recycle many of these products)
• Outdated documents

Unsure when it’s okay to throw out certain documents? Here’s a guide to how long you need to keep important papers:

• Tax returns and supporting documents (canceled checks and receipts): seven years (Keep tax returns forever if you have the space)
• Pay stubs: one year, until you get your W-2
• Investment statements: one year, until your year-end statements arrive
• Bank statements: one year
• Medical bills: one year
• Credit card statements: one month, after you’ve checked them for accuracy
• Newspapers, magazines, Internet print-outs: as soon as you’ve read them or are finished using them.

If you deep feel you should save some of the papers around in your home office that you don’t use often, either make a digital copy of it, start using your scanner or just have a special box for them and place them in your garage or storage room. Whatever you do, keep your home office uncluttered. You will enjoy it more and will produce more and better when you are there.

Love & high fives,

Jeane