7 Easy Tips to Get Organized and Streamline Your Office Space Like a BOSS
Enhance your office space and achieve maximum productivity when you streamline your surroundings to fit your needs. Whether you work in a tiny home office, a spacious corner suite, or a cozy cubicle, it’s possible to create an inspiring space that encourages output in a relaxed way. Wondering how to get organized like a boss? Use these simple steps to design your ultimate workspace.
- Identify your office’s prime real estate: your desk and the area you can easily reach while you are sitting at your desk. Anything that lives in this space should be used frequently. Your upper desk drawer is not the place for back-up copies and boxes of staples that you’ll need to access once every six months.
- Designate an inbox and an outbox. No office is complete without an inbox, which should be the dumping ground for anything that needs to be acted on. But there’s one caveat: you have to actually go through your inbox and sort it out on a regular basis. If you tend to pile things up, ask yourself this for each item in the inbox: What is the very next action that this item requires? You’ll also need an outbox, for tossing papers that need to be recycled.
- Categorize your supplies by need, not by type. It’s tempting to store all your pens together, all your research materials together, all your books together, etc. The human brain loves categories. For your office space, however, you need to sort out your things into categories according to how often they are used. For example, some books and important documents contain information that you need on a regular basis. Other reference materials need to be stored “just in case” you ever need them. Identify these “just in case” materials, and allocate them a space far away from your desk – like a filing cabinet in the closet or far corner.
- Invest in a good filing system. You’re more likely to get organized – and stay that way – when you make the task as easy as possible. If your filing cabinets are crammed full and broken, you’ll avoid them at all costs.
- Use a label maker. Whether your handwriting is polished and precise or more like illegible chicken scratchings, a label maker will give every file a consistent look. You won’t waste time scanning handwritten labels to find what you need.
- Don’t forget about your walls. If you simple need more space to get organized, consider utilizing your walls to hang calendars, bookshelves, or filing systems. Go vertical and you will always find more space.
- Add a dose of nature and inspiration. Does your office space make you happy every time you sit down? If not, what would it take to lift your spirits? Green plants and terrariums are proven mood-lifters at the office. Perhaps you need a giant mural of the beach behind your desk, a collection of art prints, or a collage of friends and family on your wall. Maybe some brightly colored pens and paper would do the trick. Decide what you need to be happy, and then design your surroundings to make you smile.
Related on Organic Authority
DIY Terrarium: When You Need More Plants in Your Life
11 Free Printable Art Prints to Decorate Your Space
5 Organization Tips from Your Grandparents
Photo by cell105