Is Your Office Out Of Control?
You might laugh at these messy office pictures, but they may also look all too familiar. Is your office out of control?
If you’ve lost control of your office space, a Professional Organizer can help you take charge of the situation and restore some sanity to your working environment. You might think your situation is too far gone for any help, but that’s not the case—I just love this type of project, and I have a whole variety of solutions for offices gone wild.
In fact, you can get started on your own, right now, with my simple plan:
First, take four containers and label them garbage, recycling, paper recycling, and donations.
Once you have your containers ready, start by gathering up all the visible garbage and and putting it into your garbage container. Likewise, any immediately obvious recyclables such as empty pop cans and bottles should go into the recycling container.
Next, start sorting everything into piles of similar items: stack all your CDs together, all books in one pile, papers to be sorted, unused stationery, small desk items, computer cables and accessories, things that don’t belong in the office at all, and so on. It’s best to work on clearing the floor first so that you have room to move around, and if possible try not to make your piles on your desk, since one of your goals will be to get your desk surface completely cleared off. This pile-making process can take a while to complete, so take breaks when you need to, and don’t put too much pressure on yourself to get it all done at once.
While you work on making your piles, you will probably continue to find more items for your garbage and recycling containers, and maybe some still-usable things that you no longer need and can donate to a local charity.
Once everything is sorted into piles, you can start to put your office back together. Focus on the desk first—decide how you’d like to have it laid out, and place the largest equipment (most likely your computer and printer) first, then arrange the smaller items around it. This will bring you back to feeling like your desk is under control.
Finally, bit by bit, you’ll need to sort through each pile and either put the items away or dispose of them. This may, again, take some time, so it’s a good idea to put each pile into a box for containment until you can deal with it.
