So, you've finally found that the perfect spot for your home office is right in the living room so it's out of sight when you head to bed, but still not lonely and forgotten in the back of the house. Too bad it's gotten to be an eyesore with sticky note to-do lists and half-chewed plastic pens everywhere. Oh, and your mom just called to say she's on her way to visit. In those no time to clean moments, Real Simple offers some help to fake a clean house...

In addition to tips on faking a clean kitchen, bathroom or kid's room, Real Simple offers these suggestions for what can be the most cluttered "room" in the house, the home office:

• Stash stray office supplies, like pencils and pens, in decorative stationery boxes or filing containers on your desk.


• Take down calendars and notes from bulletin boards and file them in folders. Or align them so that the tops are all in horizontal lines.


• Rearrange crooked books so that all spines are facing the same direction and the titles all read from top to bottom.


• Stow the keyboard and the mouse in a drawer so only the computer monitor tops the desk.


• Temporarily hide wayward Post-it notes and to-do lists underneath the keyboard.

Check out the whole list here if you need to freshen up your kitchen too—before mom realizes that you haven't done dishes since you moved in.

And if you've got a little more time, you might want to take a cue from Lifehacker's home office Spring Cleaning contest contestants and just jump into a serious de-cluttering.

[ Image from bkusler@Flickr ]