Action items for office organization

You might think you don’t have time for office organization, but we almost guarantee that you’re wrong. Think of the minutes and hours you spend looking for documents, hunting down files, and sorting through old emails to find the phone number you swore you wrote down. How much more time would you have in a day if you could cut all that lost time out of the equation?

Try these four action items to get organized and stay that way.

 Throw it out or store it

It’s a common-sense first step, but one that people so often skip. We cling to old paperwork and ancient office supplies as though our lives depended on it, when really, we can probably let most of it go and still get our jobs done. We might even be more efficient because there’s less clutter to get in the way. So first things first. Throw out whatever isn’t essential for your day-to-day work.

While you’re purging, you’ll probably come across documents that you don’t need every day or even every week but you still need to keep, maybe for tax purposes.  File them away in a banker’s box or in a locked drawer of a filing cabinet. The key is to keep them separated from your everyday documents.

 Zero in on office organization

After you get rid of everything you don’t need, whatever is still in your office is essential to your everyday work. Now it’s time to organize those things for maximum efficiency. The papers and tools you need most often should be within reach of your desk. While it’s a good idea to get up and move during the workday, you shouldn’t have to walk across the room every time you need to use the stapler.

Think of your desk chair as the center of a circle. The more often you use an item, the closer to the center it should be. This also helps keep you focused because what’s in front of you is what you need and nothing more.

Equip yourself for office organization

Invest in some file organizers, inboxes or mail sorters to keep everything where it’s supposed to be. The biggest cause of office clutter is paperwork that doesn’t have a home. So make sure that there’s a place for everything.

You might want to add an inbox and an outbox. Lifehack.org recommends creating a waiting-on-response folder. Into that folder goes everything that can’t be resolved until you have a response from someone else. A to-be-filed folder can be handy too, but be careful not to get too much of a backlog or filing will seem like an impossible task.

Maintain the magic

Even if you have the most organized office on the planet, it’s unlikely to stay that way without regular maintenance. Maintain your organization by scheduling time to clear up any stray papers, put away tools and generally make sure that all is where it should be.

Leave yourself five minutes at the end of each workday to undo the damage of the day. Before you go home, look around at your workspace and put away anything that’s out of place. Starting each day with a clean desk will make you happier and more productive.

When you rent from College Park Executive Suites, we can provide filing cabinets and other office organizational tools to help keep your office as productive as possible. Call today and be operational tomorrow.