Tips For Maintaining An Organized Office

1. Get Rid Of Things You Don't Need

One of the best things you can do to start organizing your office is by purging everything you don't need. Try to get rid of everything that is just taking up space. You can find a lot of things in your office that you haven't used and don't plan on using in the future.

A good way to do this is by looking at one section of the room at a time. Make a list of everything there. Ask yourself whether or not you need certain things. If something is broken, get it repaired, donate it, or throw it away. If you haven't used something in a long time, you'll want to make a note of it and get rid of it somehow.

You'll want to look at everything including the small things. If you have things covered in dust, likely, you don't need them.

2. Start To Relocate Things

Once you have identified everything that you are keeping, you'll want to gather it up and relocate it to where it belongs. You likely have a lot of things completely out of order. Try to figure out the best place for the various things in your office from the office plants to the furniture.

3. Come Up With Work Zones

You want to look at your office and divide it into work zones. Figure out where you will be doing certain tasks in your office. You'll likely have a primary workspace, a space for filing paperwork, and a space for storage. Section everything off and label them. This can give you a good idea of how you will be organizing your office in the future. When you don't have the office divided up, you'll find yourself throwing things anywhere.

4. Keep Things Close

You will want to try to keep the filing cabinets and other supplies that you use the most within arm's reach. This ensures that you aren't going to be lazy and put things where they don't belong.

5. Get a Label Maker

You want to buy a label maker. A label maker isn't expensive and it can help you organize your office very easily. Having a label maker will help you make organizing your office and keeping it organized much more effortless. You'll want to label all of the cabinets and shelves. This can show you where things go and it can even show people who visit your office where to find things. This can keep you from having to scour through all of your belongings to find something you are looking for. It also makes it much more efficient to put things away and find things.

6. Come Up With a Better Filing System

If your office is currently disorganized, you may want to revamp your filing system. Come up with a repeatable filing system that can keep you organized. There is something about your current system that didn't work and/or that doesn't work. Try to figure out the inefficiencies of your current system and make adjustments to it. See here a time tracking tool that will help. This can keep you better organized in the future.

You also want to think about how you can transition to digital storage. Having things stored digitally can save you a lot of space. It can also make it easier to find things. See if you can scan some files in and store them digitally instead. If you are going to switch to a digital filing system, you'll want to ensure you are doing routine backups of all of your files. Having cloud and physical backups is key to preventing data loss.

Pro Tips For Enhancing Your Filing System

Have a Meeting Folder

You'll want to have a folder dedicated to future meetings. You want to have "items to be discussed" and have every file that needs to be handed off in it. This includes any reports and other things that you will need for a meeting.

WOR Folder

This can be a folder that you use for storing files that are "waiting on a response." You will likely have files that you need to keep for when someone needs them. Have these in a set place that you can access when you need them.

Storage Boxes

Having affordable storage boxes that you can use to archive your files can be a good way to get them out of the way but keep them easily accessible.

Magazine Boxes

Try to find a box where you can store a lot of magazines or folders in it. This way, you don't have to worry about them taking up a lot of space in your office.

Reading Folder

You want to have files stored in a "reading folder." These can be documents and files that you want to read in the future but you don't necessarily deem them to be urgent.

Archive Files

You want to place all of the completed files that you no longer are actively using in an archived folder. This keeps them accessible, but out of the way.

File Weekly

You need to be filing your paperwork weekly. Don't allow things to sit around on your desk. Put your papers in a "To File" folder and have a dedicated day for putting them into storage properly.

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