If you’ve ever looked at your desk and felt a pang of frustration, you’re not alone. Keeping your workspace organised is an essential but often tricky thing for many people to do. Clutter piles up quickly, and it can be easy to become overwhelmed by a messy desk.
Fortunately, reorganising your desk is a simple, easy way to gain control of your workspace and even boost your productivity. With a little planning and strategy, you can organise your desk to make your day more productive, less stressful, and even more fun.
Whether you work in an office or from your home, having a tidy, organised desk can help you feel ready for success every time you sit at your desk. Here’s how to organise your desk to get the most out of your workspace every single day.
Step 1: Remove the Non-Essentials
Your desk is your workspace. By its very nature, a workspace is a place where you actively work to get things accomplished. If your desk is piled high with clutter, you can’t work effectively.
Clutter isn’t only an eyesore — it’s also a distraction. Visually, you can quickly become overstimulated or overwhelmed by a cluttered desk. Removing any unnecessary items frees up your workspace and your mind since you won’t be constantly reminded of all the other things you need to do.
What should you do with the things you remove? Decide which items are essential and should be kept, then file those away. It may help to have a specific drawer or filing cabinet for the things you need to work on later. The items you don’t truly need should be stored away or even disposed of completely.
Step 2: Watch For Sneaky Clutter
Sneaky clutter consists of those innocuous items that we accumulate throughout the week that seem vitally important until they’re not. Things like sticky note reminders or notes that you’ve jotted down to act upon them later are sneaky clutter items that can distract you from whatever you need to be working on at the moment.
Find one spot for these reminders, or reduce the clutter even further by using digital reminders. This method reduces clutter and allows you to check your reminders even when you’re away from your desk.
Step 3: Think Vertically
Often, our desks become cluttered because we simply don’t have enough space for the things we need to use daily. If you’re working from a small office or small desk, you may need to get creative with your organising to conquer the chaos.
Utilise shelves, stackable storage units, or other storage that provides additional storage without taking up surface area. If your desk has drawers, you may also find that adding trays can help you get organised and remove some of the clutter from your work surface.
Step 4: Make it Flow
When organising your desk, try to set everything up in a way that flows well for you. Keeping your computer in the centre, set up the tools you regularly use so that they’re in easy reach.
Many people prefer to work from left to right. For example, incoming work goes on the left side of the desk, then to the clear middle while you’re working on it. The right side of the desk is typically reserved for finished work, staplers, and any other outgoing items. Regardless of how you organise the flow of your desk, make sure it works for you.
Step 5: Don’t Forget Beneath Your Desk
One place that often gets overlooked when organising a desk is the space beneath the worktop. If you’re using a computer or telephone, likely wires or cords are hanging down and taking up space. Keeping these organised will help reduce the clutter and prevent trip hazards.
If you’re prone to stashing things beneath your desk just to clear up space, consider investing in a separate cabinet or filing cabinet just for that purpose. Not only will it help reduce the clutter and keep you organised, but you’ll eliminate one more trip hazard in your workspace.
Step 6: Go Digital
Often, we can eliminate much of our daily clutter by simply replacing pen and paper with a digital alternative. Try to see how much of your clutter could be digitised, and you may be pleasantly surprised to find that you don’t have to keep up with as much paperwork as you think.
Of course, anything that can’t be digitised can still be filed away neatly. The key is having a place for everything and keeping everything in its place.
Step 7: Make It a Habit
Keeping your desk organised requires constant effort, but it doesn’t have to be a considerable effort. At the end of each workday, do a quick sweep of your desk for any items that can be removed and stored away. At the end of the week, dust or clean the desk and computer.
Coming into a clean, well-organised desk at the start of the day will help motivate you all week long, so try to make organising a habit every day.
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Take a look at our selection of quality home and office furniture today to see how we can help you make your workspace a more productive one.