What kinds of organizational tools do I need in a home office?

What kinds of organizational tools do I need in a home office?

Mary Astadourian (Professional Organizer) gives expert video advice on: Does my home office need to be in its own room?; How can I create a dedicated home office space?; Why does my desk get so cluttered? and more...

When I'm setting up a home office for someone I want to make sure that the desk, itself, is organized, that the drawers are efficient, they're compartmentalized, they have all the things that they need in them. I would need trays or things to compartmentalize those desk drawers with. I like to make sure that the surface of the desk is pretty clean, but I do want to have some sort of pending file system so that I can keep the file folders that I need to access immediately for the projects I have going on. I think we should always have an inbox and an outbox and your general tools that you would have in any office: stapler, tape dispenser, some post-it notes, a cup or receptacle for your pens and pencils and things like that. You want to make you have all of these things and that they're all there, they're not in some other room of your house or somewhere where you're searching and saying to yourself "where is that?", "where is that pair of scissors? Oh, they're in the kitchen." You want to get another pair of scissors for your office, because you don't want to waste time having to search for things.