Determined to bring order to your home office this year?

Tax season is the perfect time to do it because you'll already be combing through financial records and sorting paperwork.

"Just having a plan can save hours of searching," said Debra Pankow, a family economics specialist with the North Dakota State University Extension Service.

The first step is determining which documents should be saved and which can be tossed.

Things to keep include tax records for at least three years; paperwork related to a divorce, adoption, lawsuit or military service; and documents on a vehicle, insured items or your home. It's OK to dispose of paperwork that can be obtained easily from another source, such as cancelled checks, credit card statements and utility bills.

For more details on what to hold on to, Pankow suggested visiting: http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/yf/fammgmt/fe445w.htm

Home management expert Deniece Schofield sends people to: http://www.bankrate.com or http://www.irs.gov for similar information.

"Armed with that information, you can tackle that pile of stuff and make safe, active decisions," said Schofield, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who has written four books about home organization.

Professional organizer Sara Bereika tells clients to create file names that mean something to them, rather than using conventional labels.

She also suggests minimizing the stream of paperwork flowing into your house to begin with. Get off mailing lists, she says, and she recommends services such as http://www.greendimes.com that help do that.

"Junk mail is a big problem," said Bereika, owner of Neat, an organizing service in Richmond, Va. "Prevention is the first thing I recommend. You've got to keep the junk from coming to your home."

Some more of the pros' tips for creating an organized home filing system:

1. Start by sorting paperwork into four categories:

- Household goods: owners manuals, receipts, warranties and other papers for appliances, computer equipment, yard equipment, etc.

- Family business: identification documents, insurance policies, car titles, etc.

- Financial papers: bills, bank statements and receipts.

- Reference materials: articles torn from newspapers or magazines, travel brochures, etc.

2. Once you have the paperwork sorted, you can start breaking out categories within each group.

3. Buy an expandable filing folder to store the household goods paperwork. Label the pockets A to Z, and file by the first letter of the appliance. (Go through this file every few years and pitch the manuals to items you no longer own.)

4. For the family business files, consider creating a file for every member of the family or every type of information: birth certificates, Social Security cards, etc. Make separate files for health, car, home and life insurance. Create additional files for 401(k) and investment information, mortgage paperwork, credit card information, bank statements and medical records. You may want to store copies of important ID papers in your files and keep the originals in a safety deposit box or fireproof container.

5. Make a tax file. Fill it with receipts from charitable donations, proof of purchases or travel that you intend to claim and other tax-related information. Store it with the family business files.

6. If you opt to save receipts and bills, file them by month in a set of files labeled January through December.

7. The family business files and monthly financial files will likely fit in the same file-cabinet drawer. Put the monthly files at the front as you will access them more often.

8. Create folders for your interests and hobbies and file your reference material according to subject. Consider scanning this information and storing it on disc.

9. Make a list of the information contained in each file drawer and tape it to the front or slide it in front of the first file.

How to avoid the clutter in your home

Tips for avoiding clutter in the home office:

- Pay bills online when possible.

- Develop a system for tackling mail as soon as it arrives. Shred unnecessary papers. Immediately sort the rest of the mail into items that will need attention, such as bills to pay or invitations to respond to, and items that need to be filed, like bank statements or paperwork related to a health insurance claim.

- Store cards that you're getting ready to send or tickets to an upcoming event with your pending mail. Make sure these papers are stored in an easily accessible place.

- Consider developing a folder for each week of the month. Place all the items that need attention in a given week in the same folder.

- File paperwork regularly.

- Provide each of your children with a bin or box labeled with their name. Allow them to fill it with artwork, school papers or other keepsakes. At the end of the year, have them go through the box and choose what they want to save. It may help to set a limit. Move the chosen papers to a bin or three-ring binder for long-term storage, and reuse the box the following year.