How to Organize Your Office

Whether you work in a cubicle, an office of your own, or a home office, you are going to run into the same problem: stuff everywhere! Maybe your desk isn’t covered in piles of papers, but just getting all of your work-related stuff more organized can boost your productivity and create a more pleasant working environment.

Here are a few strategies that can help get you started.

Paperwork Reduction

In most offices, the number one cause of clutter and disorganization is paperwork. Part of this comes from our need to keep papers that may be important to our job down the road. Another part is that we are sometimes scared to throw things away that contain any of our personal information because of identity theft risks. The good news is there are solutions.

First, you need to go through all of that paperwork and divide it into piles: a discard pile for papers that are no longer needed, keep on file here for paperwork that needs to stay close, store for paperwork that needs to be kept but not necessarily in your office, and paperwork still in active use that you need to keep out.

For the discard pile, invest in an inexpensive file shredder and throw it all away. With the second pile, make sure you have an organized file cabinet ideally within arm’s reach of your desk. File those papers away in their proper places within the cabinet so you can find them easily when you need them.

Since the third pile of paperwork doesn’t need to be readily accessible, consider boxing it up and storing it at a nearby self storage facility. You could even invest in a scanner and make digital copies of the paperwork before sending it off to the facility.

Finally, all of the paperwork currently in use should go in a tray marked “In progress” or something similar. Have a second tray marked “Finished” or “Out” so you can place paperwork that is no longer needed. At the end of the week, you can organize the paper in that tray just as you did with the rest.

Furniture & Equipment

As mentioned above, self storage units offer a convenient and affordable option for storing paperwork. But it can also help you organize your office in other ways, too. For example, if you have computer equipment or office furniture you want to keep but that is currently just taking up space then a storage unit can hold all of these items for you and free up big chunks of room in your office.

Take a look around the office and get rid of furniture you don’t need. Extra work services just give people more room to stack papers and other things instead of organizing them properly. Plus, you want to keep your office as open as possible and that’s hard to do if it is crammed full of desks, bookshelves, tables, and chairs. The same is true for computer equipment.

Desktop Organizing

When it comes to organizing your desk, you should follow one rule of thumb: the only things that need to be on top of my desk are things I use a lot. Everything else needs a drawer or a trip to the trash can. Once you’ve decided what stays on the desk, you can purchase caddies or other small organizers to keep those paper clips, pens, and notepads organized.

Organizing your office really starts with getting rid of anything you don’t need and giving everything you do need a specific place. Once you’ve got that completed your challenge is keeping it organized so give yourself a couple of minutes to reorganize your work area first thing in the morning or right before you leave in the afternoon.  The effort will pay off.

If you found these tips helpful, please comment and share below.

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