Creating a comfortable work environment for yourself is one of the best things you can do to increase your productivity. While a cluttered desk is not necessarily a sign of a cluttered mind, too much distraction can make it difficult for you to focus on the task at hand.
A clean and well-organized workspace is a pleasant place to be, which means you’ll enjoy your time at work more. Your workspace should also be functional, arranged and organized in a way that makes your workflow logical.
This article walks you through the essential steps to cleaning and organizing your workspace and keeping it harmonious to encourage your best possible workflow.
Visualize Your Ideal Work Environment
It can be tempting to browse Pinterest for office organization ideas hoping that someone’s beautiful office will inspire you to keep yours tidy. Unfortunately, even the most curated idea board isn’t going to motivate you to keep your space tidy if it doesn’t work for you.
The things that make those offices beautiful may not be functional in your space or practical for the kind of work that you do. That’s why you must take a moment to reflect on what you want your office to do for you. Creating a personalized vision will help you to set up a functional office that makes your work easier and more enjoyable.
Categorize Work Tasks Into Zones
Consider the primary tasks you do for your work from one day to the next. Then, arrange your office in zones that allow you to complete those tasks efficiently. Consider the supplies you need to do those tasks and plan to have them in their respective zones.
For example, if your work involves a lot of time spent at the computer, designate a portion of your desk for computer use. If you print or mail a lot of documents, establish a printing station with your printer, paper, inks, envelopes, and stamps.
Some jobs require a lot of reading and research out of physical books. A reading station with bookshelves, a comfortable place to sit, a reading lamp, and a pen and paper for note-taking will make reading much more enjoyable.
Aside from making your work more efficient, dividing your work tasks into zones will help you get into the right mindset for a particular task. When you sit down at your computer station, for example, your brain will begin to prepare for computer work, helping you stay present within the task at hand.
Clean and Organize
Once you have a concrete idea of what tasks you do regularly and the supplies required to do them, it’s time to organize those spaces. You first have to get rid of everything that doesn’t belong in your ideal office. Then you’ll find a home for everything that does belong.
Declutter Your WorkSpace
Gather up everything in your office - yes, everything! Pull all the random items out of your desk drawers. Take everything off your shelves, including your books.
Chances are, you’ve accumulated a lot of unnecessary supplies. Maybe they were helpful to you at one point, but they don’t fit your workflow anymore. You won’t know what those things are until you’ve brought them out into the open and examined them.
Throw away or relocate anything you don’t use at all, as well as trash. Sort what’s left by zone, putting the necessary supplies for a particular task in that task’s zone. Note that you’re not putting any of the supplies away yet. Right now, just focus on getting them to the correct zone.
Some things are notorious for cluttering up offices. In particular, you’ll want to tackle:
Paper. Organize all your paper into piles. Pull out any to-do lists so that you can compile them into one master list later. Put receipts in an envelope and store them in a file folder. Throw away anything you have a copy of on your computer, unless you’ll need to print it again later.
Pens. Pens. You probably have more pens on, around, and on top of your desk than you could ever use. A lot of them may be out of ink anyway. Gather them all and scribble with them on a scrap piece of paper. Throw out any pens that don’t work and any that you don’t enjoy using.
Personal items. In an office, people tend to accumulate clothing and other personal items from home. When your office is in your home, however, this clutter can start to take over. Gather any clothes (dirty or clean) and take them out of the office. Take home (or remove from your office) anything that doesn’t have to do with your work.
Deep Clean Your Workspace
Wipe down your desk with a disinfecting solution or cloth, then dust your shelves and any other visibly dirty surfaces. You’ll want to pay close attention to your keyboard, which accumulates dust, skin cells, food, and germs over time. Shake it upside down, then use a compressed air canister, special putty, or a folded sticky note to get any leftover dirt between the keys.
Consider your work surface and how you can keep it clean once you’ve wiped it down. If you spend a lot of time at your desk, a desk blotter or other pad can keep your fingerprints off the surface. Blotters are especially helpful for keeping clear acrylic or glass desktops clean, which can be particularly frustrating.
Sweep or vacuum your floor, taking care to get into the corners where your furniture meets the floor. The decluttering process tends to leave a lot of debris on the floor. No matter how well you organize your workspace, it won’t feel truly clean until you’ve swept up all the mess. While you’ve got the vacuum, use the hose to suck out any dirt from inside your desk drawers.
Give Everything a Place
Once you’ve decluttered, cleaned, and disinfected your workspace, you can get started organizing what’s left. Keeping your office organized is going to require you to put things away regularly. Choose a home for every single item that you keep as you put things back.
For some items, this is a simple task. Your computer’s home is on your desk, and if you’ve divided your office into zones, your printer’s home is in your printing zone. Books go on the bookshelf, and if you really want to keep your office tidy, that means all of the books. As cute as a pile of books may look sitting on the corner of your desk, it’s still clutter.
Other items might not be quite so simple to give homes to. For example, your top drawer might be home to your pens, paper clips, sticky notes, and a calculator. To avoid a mess, put smaller containers inside the drawer to keep things separate. You can buy a dedicated organizer if you’d like, but an old cell phone box (both the top and bottom) works just as well.
Make sure to find homes for items that tend to move around your office a lot, too. Things like staplers, sticky notes, and tape dispensers tend to start at one corner of your desk and end up scattered in completely different places over time. If you give them a home in a drawer or on a shelf instead, your desk will look tidier and you’ll be more likely to keep them there.
Plan to Stay Organized
Having a clean and organized office will make you more efficient and your workday more enjoyable, but only as long as you keep it that way. For some people, this is harder than getting it organized in the first place. Here are a few tips to make it easier.
Don’t Eat At Your Desk
It can be tempting to sit down at your desk on your lunch break to get a little extra work done. This temptation is even greater when your office is in your home and the line between home and workspace is so blurry. But eating food at your desk will make it that much harder to keep your office clean.
For one thing, your keyboard and mouse are covered in germs, and eating while you’re working means you’re putting those germs in your mouth. Plus, you’re getting crumbs, sauces, and all sorts of other ickiness all over your computer, and managing that can make work unpleasant.
You also have to be sure to pick up and throw away your various takeout containers or take your dishes back to the kitchen. Save yourself the headache and take your lunch break in another room, at least. You should take a mental break from work while eating anyway.
Clean Every Day
This may sound like overkill, but daily cleaning is the best thing you can do if you want to keep your office clean and tidy. Set aside ten minutes at the end of your workday to give your whole space a reset. Put all of your items back in their homes, and if your desk is visibly dirty, wipe it down.
If it doesn’t take you ten minutes to get it done, great! You just bought yourself a few more minutes at the end of your day. Either way, you’ll have a tidy office to get started on the next day, and the day after that.
