There are many benefits to living in a simple and minimal environment. Lack of clutter helps us focus and boosts our mood. Have you ever sat down at your desk at work or in your home office and felt like you just couldn't get any work done and started tidying up instead? It might be a good idea to listen to that impulse and make your work environment a more productive place. In this article we're going to give you some tips for making your home office a distraction-free, minimal sanctuary. At the same time, these tips will be low cost--minimalism and frugality go hand in hand after all.

Why minimalism?

If you're the type of person who lives in a "well-organized mess" and is able to function highly in this environment, maybe you don't need to strip things down. Or, if you feel the most comfortable in a busy room and are able to get more work done this way, maybe the busy and cozy office environment works for you. However, the majority of people don't fit that description. We tend to do our best work when we have only the necessities at had. Having a minimal home office has numerous benefits. Aside from helping you focus and adding a spacious, pleasant atmosphere to the room, minimalism can help your room look more updated and modern (increasing the value of your home), and can help you save money once you start making only the most useful purchases for your home office.

Your office as a workshop

If you work on cars in your garage and nothing else, you'll probably only want to fill your garage with the right tools for the job. This is also true for your home office. We have a tendency of putting old and extra furniture and decorations from our house into the less frequented rooms, like a home office. Look around your office. Has it become a storage room for old pillows, lamps, or furniture? If so, this is your chance to get rid of some items to clear up the room. Unlike your garage, the tools for the job needed in your home office have been extremely cut down thanks to technology. Among the items that laptops and smartphones have made obsolete:

• filing cabinets--Google Drive and Dropbox can securely store all your documents
• calculators--your phone and laptop have these
• staplers
• hole punches
• landline telephones
• bulletin boards
• desktop calendars and planners

This list goes on and on. If you have the equivalent or a replacement on your laptop, there's no need to clutter your room with it.

Minimal decorating

Since simple living and minimalism are current trends there are a range of resources available to you when looking to revamp your home office. Some decorating tips to help you along the way:

• Shop modular. Modular furniture from stores like IKEA and VITSOE are great space savers.
• Keep your surfaces clear. Avoid the urge to cover your desk with items. That goes for tables, floors, walls, and ceilings as well.
• Think about color. Using bright colors for your walls and ceiling will make your room feel more spacious and minimal.
• Nature is your friend. Natural light and one or two plants will compliment any minimal space.

Home life is a key to long term success as an entrepreneur, especially for entrepreneurs who work out of one or more rooms of their house. Personal relationships, client discussions and overall at home comfort play a significant factor in how effective and efficient entrepreneurs who work from home are. This, in turn, impacts the amount of sales and income that these hard chargers take in.

So much to love and think about as a work-from-home entrepreneur

Entrepreneurs may be the hardest, most focused, devoted and happiest of workers. They are visionaries who refuse to give up, even when facing seemingly impossible odds. It’s the makeup of entrepreneurs that attracts people - that lures thousands of people toward business ownership. Technology continues to make it easier for entrepreneurs to work from home.

What technology hasn’t done is made it easier for entrepreneurs to eliminate distractions, the very distractions that lure them away from projects, assignments and client meetings. It’s easy to click on, open and read emails each time you hear a ringing sound, alerting you that a new email has arrived in your in-box. It’s easy to answer your smartphone whenever someone sends you a text message or calls you, especially if you’re nervous about an impending sales meeting or expecting a call from a prospective client you want to secure a deal with.

It’s easy to get distracted while working from home, but it’s definitely not productive. Reduce distractions, get more done and start generating a larger income by:

• Designating a specific room in your house as your home office and training your family members, including young children, that, when you’re in the room, you’re working
• Stocking your home office with enough supplies to last a week or longer
• Choosing a comfortable home office desk and chair
• Opening blinds, drapes or curtains in your home office and taking in loads of natural sunlight
• Keeping your home office free of a television, video game player and dual monitor that scrolls news or entertainment reports
• Creating a daily, weekly and monthly schedule that list deliverables that you have to complete to meet due dates and financial targets
• Playing soft music overhead while you work (if you find yourself spending too much time listening to the lyrics, turn the music off)
• Waiting until you have completed projects for the day before you start performing errands around the house
• Making it clear to your friends that you’re working from home
• Exercising the courage to tell relatives, friends and neighbors that you cannot run errands for them during your work hours
• Adding plants, flowers and motivational slogans to your home office to keep your energy levels high
• Getting a restful night of sleep

Home should be a safe haven. However, it shouldn’t become such a comfortable place that all you want to do is lounge around while you’re home. Give into this temptation as an entrepreneur who works from home and your income may fall below your household expenses. Start taking steps now to create the type of home office that encourages you to focus on -- not run away from -- assignments, client meetings, sales calls and marketing activities. When you look at your salary at the end of the year, you’ll be glad that you did.