7 office organization tips to declutter your space

How organized is your office workspace? When in need of office organization tips, there are a myriad of places you can go to get them. From surfing the web to talking to business owners and employees in other offices you know and more find tips on how to declutter your space.

In better organizing your office, you’ll feel good about getting more work done and not feeling all too often stressed out over your workplace conditions.

Young woman with her head on desk — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Office organization tips

Are you someone with a clutter issue in the office?

As you ponder that question, know that a messy workspace can lead to issues. These would be both on the job and even outside of work as it relates to your health. From falling behind on work to losing stuff, a mess can cause stress. The bottom line is being cluttered at work is not good. So, how should you best go about improving your workspace setting?

Among the areas of focus should be:

Review your workplace space from top to bottom

The first step to take would be to go over your workspace with a fine-toothed comb. Look to see why the office you work in is so cluttered. Odds are, you have been putting off doing this for a while now and may even feel a little overwhelmed. The key is to stay focused and also patient. Short of tossing everything in sight, you will need to take some time and analyze what you are working with.

From paperwork to supplies and more, review to see what you need to keep. See what can be tossed or put in storage for a period of time.

Use your workspace wisely and get the most out of it

One of the main reasons you may be dealing with clutter is you are not getting the most out of your workspace. Depending on the area involved, you may in fact be wasting space and not even realize it.

Although it sounds taxing, it may be wise to remove everything from the space that is not bolted down. Move the items outside the space and then slowly put them back in. At the end of the day, you may find that some of the items you had in the workspace you, in fact, do not need. You might see that repositioning a desk, cabinets, tables, and more could give you more space.

Don’t be a pack rat and hang on to everything

You likely know one or more pack rats in your life. In fact, you may be one yourself. However, you likely do not need to keep much if any paperwork from a decade ago. Unless the paperwork is still relevant to the work you do today, odds are, it can be tossed.

If you decide to toss various pieces of paperwork, by all means, shred them. There’s no sense taking a chance of someone getting a hold of personal work information that they could profit from.

Label what is most important to you

Some workers have a tendency to lap a bunch of work stuff into a big pile. In doing this, important documents and other items can get lost in the shuffle. Have a filing/labeling system in place. This is so that you have priorities for what needs your attention the most from day to day.

As an example, if you handle human resources for your boss, make sure you stick to deadlines and are organized. From making sure workers get paid on time to addressing workplace issues and more, you have a tough job. As such, you can’t afford to be unorganized and dealing with a lot of clutter.

Having a system in place allows you to meet each need as the week moves along. This can be everything from sticky notes to color-coding files and more.

A folder of office policies — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Is it time to go paperless for the most part?

Depending on the type of job you have and the office you work in, is it possible to move towards paperless files? As an example, there are still a fair number of medical offices with countless files on display. Yes, files of their various patients and their medical history with that office. Many practices still rely on their onsite servers to keep their tech humming along.

Now, what if you could move much or all that information your practice relies on over to the cloud? With access to the cloud, you can have much if not all the medical info you need available electronically. There’s no worrying about paperwork getting lost or damaged due to mismanagement, water or fire damage, and so on. Best of all, you can free up a fair amount of space that was dedicated to files stuffed into cabinets, bookcases and the like.

Set aside time each week to go through paperwork

For many in a cluttered workspace, it often is all the paperwork that accumulates. Set some time aside each week to go through such paperwork. Depending on your work schedule, Friday may be one of your slower days of the week. If it is, you can put aside an hour or so to review all the paperwork on your desk or in immediate folders nearby.

In the event you have not filed such papers, take the time during the period set aside to review paperwork to file it. Also, get rid of any papers no longer of value. Doing this will give you a fresh start as you prepare on Monday to begin a new work week.

Consider hiring a pro to come in

When all else fails, you may need an organizer. A professional organizer can look at the clutter you have and offer some objective means of getting rid of it. They won’t be attached to all the stuff you have in your office. As a result, there are no sentimental feelings on their end to what you should get rid of, as long as it does not have a negative impact on your ability to do your job. Best of all, hiring a pro for your office workspace could lead them to possibly help you out at home too with clutter.

Use the Internet to search for professional organizers and to get a feel for what they would cost you, how to vet them and so on. In organizing your office, will you take the clutter out and be on a path to a more productive operation?