Don't be like Al Gore. Certainly the man has some endearing qualities. He's charismatic, a strong speaker, and a knowledgeable man who has no problem sharing his intellect with the world. But have you seen his office? Go ahead. Google Al Gore, and you will see one of the scariest pictures you've ever witnessed on the internet. There Al sits, in the middle of his office, staring at the three computer screens panned across one side of his corner desk. But then again, maybe that's not a desk. It's hard to tell with the papers stacked up to Mr. Gore's earlobes. Ironically, we can all relate. We've all seen offices juts like this, and many of them have a single-word label for them: ours.



If any office needs organizing, it's the home office. Al Gore most likely has paid staff to keep him on track, and thus he can live with a disorganized office. But the typical home business owner does not have that option. He has no line item for "administrative assistant," and rarely does his wife count as a staff member. She doesn't want to deal with his mess either. Disorganized and messy offices reflect the mind of the individual working in them, and they represent the lack of discipline and poor business management of that individual as a whole. So how can we remedy the problem.

Home office organization begins with a three-decision process. The home business owner must start by taking everything out of the office, even the cricket that's been chirping behind the copy machine for the past three years. Once he has everything out of the office, the home business owner should make a decision on every item in the business. It's time to make piles. He should create a throw pile, a give away/sell pile, and a keep pile. At this point the home business owner may well need help from his unpaid administrative assistant, also known as his wife. She will help him make wise decisions. No, he does not need to keep the empty beer bottle that he and his buddy bought to celebrate their first dollar earned. Yes, he needs to keep the receipts for his most recent computer purchase.

Finally, the home business owner must invest in some quality home organization tools. This may include shelves, a set of filing cabinets, and a general organizer. The administrative assistant can help with the organizing of the random materials leftover after the office culling. The organization system should pass a two-prong test, however. It must make sense to the one who runs the business, and it must make sense in general, meaning that if anyone needed to find a file, should the business owner reach an untimely demise, then those who love him most should be able to find what they need to either continue business or close accounts and shut the business down properly.

We can learn a great deal from Al Gore. Greenhouse gases are bad. They destroy the environment. We need to do something to improve our carbon footprint. And if we can't afford a paid administrative assistant for our home business, we need to keep our offices in order and not be like Al Gore.