Declutter Your Office While You Work
For some people, the promise of spring brings to mind thoughts of being fresh and clean. The trees and flowers are blooming anew and it’s like nature has finally awoken from its frosty slumber. These feelings of freshness and cleanliness are probably what brought on the whole idea of “spring cleaning”. It’s so easy to lose your motivation when it’s cold outside. Just like things pile up and cleaning responsibilities get neglected at home during the winter months, the same can be said about your office at work. Now is the time to look into cleaning and freshening up your surroundings, whether at home or at work.
Now, we know that not everyone is naturally fond of cleaning. Most people actually need some incentive to get motivated while others have come up with their own tricks and methods that help get the job done. We’ve put our spring cleaning tips and tricks together here in one place for you to refer to when the time comes to bring some clean organization to your surroundings.
Divide and Conquer
The first thing you need to do is mentally split your office up into sections. The area that should have the highest priority on your cleaning to-do list is wherever you spend the most of your time. This is most likely where you sit at your computer or laptop. From there, you may have a filing cabinet for documents, an additional workspace for papers and research, and storage for anything else you may need on a daily basis. Once you have created that visual division of your workspace, you can then attach each area quickly and efficiently rather than trying to clean everything all at once. When you try to do the entire office at the same time you may find yourself moving things from one area to another without actually making any progress.
Toss it!
One of the best pieces of advice I’ve heard for spring cleaning a wardrobe is to throw or give anything away that you haven’t used in more than a year. A variation of the same can be said for your office. While it might not be prudent, or even legal, to throw things away in your office, you can still put them out of sight. For documents and folders that you have to keep on hand for an extended period of time, you can put them in a filing cabinet so they aren’t in your way anymore.
For the types of documents you can throw away, you might want to consider investing in a paper shredder. Not only will you be able to protect important company data, the shredded paper doesn’t take up nearly as much space in your trash can.
Embrace your Inner Minimalist
If at all possible, your desk should become an homage to the minimalist style. Try to clear your desk of anything you don’t use on a daily basis. Instead of having a plethora of post-it notes stuck everywhere, consider using a daily planner. The small size is much more appealing to the eye and more than capable of handling all of your little notes and numbers you may need.
There is also no need to keep containers filled with pens and paperclips on your desktop as there is sure to be a perfectly good drawer that can hold them. Try to keep the things on your desk limited to your computer/laptop, one pen, your phone, and a desk lamp. Not only does it look better, but it’s also more conducive to staying productive throughout the day.
When you spend eight to ten hours a day at your job, it’s easy for everything to get cluttered pretty quickly. If you take a few minutes out of your day, every day, to throw things away, file away the week’s work, and dust a bit, you won’t have to worry about doing such an intensive spring cleaning every year.
Image Credit: freedigitalphotos.net/tiramisustudio
