If you’re anything like us, you tend to thrive in a creative, colorful environment. Some entrepreneurs work from their dining room tables or in the organized chaos of their offices, but we find that a clutter-free environment stimulates inspired thinking. If you’d like to run a more organized office, this post is just for you.
An organized office offers many great benefits apart from just allowing a free flow of energy:
- A tidy office reduces stress levels. No more falling over items and no more visual over-stimulation.
- An organized office increases productivity as a clear desk increases focus.
- An organized workspace will put more time in your day as you will spend less time looking for things.
A neat workspace saves you money. Apart from possibly finding checks, coins, and notes in those stacks of mail, you may find unpaid bills, which are bound to fetch interest fees and late charges.
A tidy computer is a fast computer.
Here Are 6 Simple Ways to Organize your Home Office:
Now that you know how decluttering and organizing your workspace will benefit you let’s look at some of the best ways to organize your office.
1. Purge
Grab a bag or trash bin and start throwing away everything that you don’t use daily: scrap paper, mementos, junk mail, old documents, delivery receipts (from that online shopping habit), and anything that is not of significance or that you won’t need in future.
Essentially, everything that isn’t directly business related needs to go.
2. Go Paperless
If you can, consider going paperless:
Scan all your important documents and store them on an external hard drive or in the cloud.
Ask everyone who sends you snail mail to send it to you via email – including your ISP, cable company, bank, etc.
3. Clean Up Your PC
Tidy up your PC and you will see how much faster it becomes:
- Organize all files by type and store them in the correct folders.
- Delete unused files and empty the recycle bin.
- Remove any programs you no longer use.
You’ll be amazed at how much faster your computer runs after completing these 3 simple tasks.
4. Organize Your Days
Do you often walk into your office and use your email messages as a to-do list? If you find that you don’t know what your workday holds from day to day, it may be time to start using a proper schedule.
Try creating a detailed schedule in Google Calendar – it is free and easy to use, and it will keep you on track.
5. Sort Out Storage
Storage is often a problem in a home office, but here are some ways to have fun with it:
- Repurpose bathroom and kitchen cupboards for storage and also as foundations for desks.
- Use ice trays to organize the paper clips, thumb tacks and other small items inside your drawers.
- No drawers? No problem. Glue together a few mason jars and when dry, turn them on their sides on your desk for an attractive, easy to use solution.
- Spray paint boxes with loose lids in fun colors to store larger items.
- Instead of sharing your desk with a bulky printer that you use infrequently, place it on a wheeled cart that you can pull closer when the need arises.
- Storage bins can easily be made attractive with a can of gold spraypaint.
- Store smaller items in beautifully matching gift boxes of different sizes.
6. Apply Multi-Functional Hacks
Home offices tend to be small, but with some creativity, you can ensure that your office has everything you may ever need.
- Paint a glass tabletop with whiteboard paint on which to write your notes, or keep a calendar.
- Mount your PC monitor to the wall to save space, create a high-tech office and improve your posture.
- Repaint some old wood shutters and hang it above your desk area. They offer handy ways to file relevant documents and to organize your desk.
- Keep a can opener in the office – it’s an excellent tool to open up heavily plasticized office supplies.
- Binder clips are a fantastic asset to any office. Use them to organize cables, to hang small storage boxes and headphones out of sight on the side of your desk.
- Use colorful twist ties to store your cords.
- Tired of wasting time finding the end of your tape? Next time, insert a bread tab at the end as a placeholder.
- Use beautifully painted clipboards, mounted to the wall, as image inspiration.
Keeping an organized office is an ongoing effort, rather than that once-a-year spring clean. If you make a concerted effort of putting things where they belong after using it, your office will remain tidy and organized.
Do you have a favorite organizational trick that helps you stay sane? Share it with us in the comments!