You might think that office organization doesn’t matter, but if you really know how much disorganization costs you, you would reconsider. Replacing the furniture or moving the piles occasionally doesn’t count. And cleaning off your desk doesn’t mean swiping everything into a drawer or a bin. Neat and tidy office space will help you be more productive, and waste less important time.
Organizing an office might take days, but the truth is that if you organize yourself a bit, it can be done in little time. In fact, maintaining your office organized is what matters most. It’s like dealing with a long-term project: it must be maintained at top levels if you want to be successful. So, if you are ready, we can get started: read the following organizing tips that will help you transform your office.
De-clutter
Empty, throw away, get rid of everything that no longer serves you. Take a look around and see what haven’t you used in a long while? If something doesn’t work efficiently anymore, then send it out to repair. Or simply throw it away. This goes for furniture, supplies, equipment, and so on. Decluttering the office might be scary for most of us, but not if you follow the right tips for office organization. It would be great if you could pull every object and sort, it into groups. While we understand that there is not enough time and space for that, you can start addressing smaller areas of the office, one at a time.
It is the best solution for you. But you must be very careful to not create a bigger mess than you started with. Ideally, you will go through each piece of paper and decide whether you want to keep it or not. But if this sounds too overwhelming for you, then we suggest you remove the past couple of months of papers from the top of the loads. Put those in a bin, and sort them as soon as you can. This will allow you to completely declutter your office and remain on top of keeping every paper organized.
Consider a software to organize PDF files
No matter the industry you work in, you just deal with too many PDF files around, so you need a good PDF Chef system. We live in a digital era where PDF documents are the main material for info evolution. Everything is transformed in PDF, so once you will have many PDFs around you, it will become harder to find information. Thus, you need some tools to organize them effectively. Organizing PDF documents is an easy process if you use the proper PDF organizer.
The benefits of PDFs cannot be denied. They’re more secure and much simpler than you think. The PDF documents first started in 1993, but there was trouble figuring out how to use them. But now, as we are more familiar with the internet and digital devices than we are with ourselves, it has become significantly easier to use PDF documents. All you need to do is focus and have control of the organization process. Putting all your PDF papers into a file is a great place to start the organization of your office.
Once you will have all of them in place, it will become much easier for you to continue with the organization. It might be time-consuming, but it’s the only way to save time for later when searching for info. If this looks helpful for you, alphabetize your PDF files. Create folders and alphabetize the PDF documents accordingly. Getting digitally organized is especially important if you want to create a paperless work environment.
Clear your desk
We invite you to take a look at your desk: if it’s filled with office supplies, files, and other objects, then it means that it needs organization. Remove everything you don’t need, and only keep the must-have items you use consistently. You might not be a minimalist person, but the less is always more! Some of the objects might have been distracting you from your work this whole time, and you didn’t even realize! With nothing around you to distract you from keeping up with your work, you can focus better now on improving productivity.
Managing email effectively
We already know: it’s Monday morning, your boss wants you to check all the unread emails from the past week. There are some effective ways to manage your email, so you can stay productive at the workplace. Checking emails regularly can be a first step towards keeping a clean inbox. But as it’s tough to not be distracted from others at work, which can dramatically lower your productivity, your email inbox ends up looking like it just exploded. A good strategy is to check the emails once a day. If you already know that you receive emails during the day, then you might set ten minutes each two hours to check them. Respond to each email that focuses on your work. Plus, you don’t want your boss annoyed because you didn’t respond to their email right away.
Be consistent
As with most things in life, the key to have an organized office is to be consistent. You can’t just organize your office once and then expect it to remain clean in tidy without following the tips above. Organizing your office must become a habit: promise yourself that you will be consistent and keep up with maintaining the office clean.
Enjoying a clean and tidy workspace is a commitment you must make to yourself – and consistency is a must, as well. Give the tips above a try, and witness how things change for the better in no time.
Don’t forget:
- Clean your desk often
- Organize the drawers
- Avoid eating at your desk
- Throw away trash
- Create a to-do list of important things
All of this will lift your confidence, and transform you into a happier and healthier worker.