To begin, evaluate your current situation. Take a good look at your workstation right now. Is it covered with stacks of papers and books that you've been meaning to organize since the last time you saw the colour of your desktop?

Now is the time to tackle that cleaning project. Sometimes the key to having a more productive workstation is taking care of the clutter, says Molly Bennett, a home office designer.

Clean up the environment
If you clean out the clutter and you still cannot work in your space, it's time to look at environmental issues. What are the sights, sounds, and smells that drive you to distraction? "When I do a needs assessment, what I'm looking to find out is if they can see well enough; if they can't see, then we look at lighting," says Bennett. "If they have bookshelves looming over them and depressing them, then we'll deal with that."

A simple move from a basement office to the main floor of a new house is already giving technical writer David Boss a fresh outlook. "With the new [office], two sides are basically windows, and because it's right on the main floor I'm trying to get something that looks better. The other one was sort of tucked away, and there was stuff piled all over the place."

Right equipment, wrong job
Next, consider the office layout, says Bennett. Are the things you use the most within arm's reach? Or are you constantly walking back and forth from your printer to your fax machine?

In order to make your space work better for you, consider how you can better organize the equipment. If you don't need something, you should probably move it to another room, or get rid of it altogether.

Ergonomics is a key issue that you cannot overlook. Having the proper chair or keyboard is essential if you want to save yourself physical pain that could prevent you from working.

Most of the common mistakes that Bennett sees come from this mismatch. "People who only sit in an office for half an hour a day, it's fine for them to have a dining room chair. But people who are keyboarding for six to eight hours need to have something on wheels; they need something comfortable."

Plan and budget
Once you think you know what's preventing productive work in your space, do something about it. Work with the information you discovered in your evaluation to develop a plan for a more dynamic workspace.

If you're starting from scratch, you'll want to take measurements of your space. The last thing you want to do is find out that the perfect desk that you already bought at a last-chance sale blocks your door. With a good idea of the dimensions, and hopefully some serious thought addressing what belongs in that space, it's time to shop.

Even though you have a plan, don't be surprised to find yourself retooling it as you go along, as Boss has done. "I did go through the planning stage; now I'm at the point where I'm sitting on the fence. I'm trying to decide what's going to work best in the space."

You don't have to go out and spend a lot of money on new furniture, says Bennett. This is good news for many small business owners, who usually aren't rolling in excess cash. Her own office rang in at $300, and she predicts that someone just starting out can get everything for $500 to $800.

Of all the furniture you buy, however, put every effort into getting the right chair. "You can always make a desk comfortable by adding wrist pads, and pads for the keyboard. But a chair, if the chair is no good, you're beat."

Results
Once you have gone through the redesigning process, you can start to reap the benefits, says Bennett. By being more productive, you can also be more profitable, and isn't it nice to finally see just what colour your desk is?

Boss says he can already see his productivity increasing, giving credence to Bennett's theory. "It's a bit early to really tell, but I do think so, just because it's more open and you don't feel as if you're closeted away in the dungeon. The downside is that it's more part of the main house and not as isolated as it was before."