I’ve organized nine offices in the Napa Valley in the past six weeks.

About half of these were family offices for planning family schedules and maintenance. Surprisingly, it requires more time to set up a home office. When organizing your space, it should be fun to create and easy to maintain. I’d like to share with you some examples of troubled areas I commonly encounter in corporate and residential offices.

In a corporate environment, I often see documents, reading material and potential projects that haven’t been purged for years. At the executive level, someone often thinks the documents have been weeded through and then reorganized by the support staff. It’s important to stay on top of this and only keep current, useful items close at hand.

Another problem I often see is space planning that doesn’t quite work for the person’s needs and the flow of information. Some offices have not converted to ergonomically fit furniture. They have old desks and cracked incoming trays that in the wrong place. If you use an item more than three times a day, it should be in excellent shape and user friendly.

There is often no scheduled time to maintain what was previously created. When things are finally organized correctly, it takes some time to maintain the system, but few people make a practice of this.

In a residential environment, I generally see a few challenging arrangements.

There is a lack of adequate filing cabinets in many home offices. They can be too difficult to open and although the owner may prefer using letter size documents, they have a legal filing cabinet.

Some office supplies are old, worn and unusable. If the owner previously tried to organize a home office, he neglected to keep it looking good and became unmotivated to maintain it. Spend a little money for new, useful items and then recycle what no longer serves you.

There is usually no proper system for financial information. People don’t know how long they should keep certain documents, or what they keep is improperly stored for tax purposes. Ask your tax advisor how long to keep past filings, etc. It’s important to be able to get financial papers quickly.

It’s worth the initial time investment to be strategic in setting up your office, whether it’s a home office or your cubicle at work. It’s as important as putting gas in your car or tying your shoelaces. Get to it and you won’t regret it.

Lana Nakone is the author of “Organizing for Your Brain Type” and “Every Child Has a Thinking Style.” Her Web site is www.organizedworld.com. She can be reached by e-mail or by calling 524-9896.