If you work from home most of the time then you are aware of the dangers of a messy desk. A messy, disorganized home office desk is not only depressing but also has a profound effect on our productivity. It affects the flow of the thought and destroys our efficiency.
Home office desk is easy to organize and maintain if you can follow a few simple steps and adhere to a set of tested and proven rules. This article will help you organize your Home office Desk space so that you feel productive and inspired to work.
Follow these 4 steps to organize your Home office desk:
Step 1 – Declutter – Clutter leads to an unproductive work space. As a first step you need to declutter. A good way to do this is to clear off anything from the desktop, shelves and drawers. There are usually many old items and devices that are useless or do not work. We either hold onto them for sentimental reasons or just could not get ourselves to discard them. Go through all your items and ask – “is it is really important for this to be in my work space?” Keep aside anything that does not fit the criteria. You can find another place for them or throw them away. Clean off the desk thoroughly.
Step 2 – Assign everything a place-Everything has to have a place and everything should be in its place. Before you put things back you need to clearly assign spaces for specific items on the desk. Where will the laptop/desktop go? Which side will you keep the files? What will go in the drawers? Think this through and only then start putting items back on the desk. Everything needs to be assigned a place and everything has to be in its place. Follow this rule and you will see your life becoming much simpler. When I applied this principle, the first thing I noticed was that I stopped misplacing things and work got done faster.
Step 3 – Invest in organizers– Without good organizers you will soon find your desk drawers overflowing with files, random papers, small clips, pens, staplers etc. Although these exist in your drawers they tend to become untraceable when you need them. If untended, drawers become unmanageable and you will feel disgusted just opening them. This is where good desk and drawer organizers come in. It helps you assign places for specific items and keep them there.
Step 4 – Create flow of work – Think of your work as a flow of activities. There is input, then there is a process and finally the output. Arrange the items needed in a way that will provide ease of access according to the input -process- output flow of your tasks. For example, the input may be an email you access on a laptop or a new client file on your desk. You may then transfer information from that onto a notepad,maybe check the calendar or do a few calculations -this is the processing part. You may need a notepad ,few pens or pencils,papers,planner,devices etc. for this step.Organize these so that these are readily available. Then the output might be an email too but you may also have some print outs and copies along with invoices,payment receipts etc. These you can arrange in a separate area.
(I try to arrange my desk aligning with the flow of work. All the inputs and files that contain the documents etc. which are associated with the inputs- I keep on my left side shelves of the desk and left side drawers. The materials needed for processing such as papers pens, empty folders etc. are placed on the middle shelf of the desk and the items associated with the output are kept on the right shelves and drawers- these include files, folders, printer, special pens for signing etc.)
Once you have organized your desk space using the above steps, it is time to establish some rules to maintain it that way.
Some rules to follow to ensure that the desk remains clean and organized are as follows:
No eating at your desk! Absolutely no food should be eaten at the home office desk. Your workspace is sacred, and you should not allow it to be violated by the pesky food wrappers, banana peels and crumbs. If you do not follow this rule, you will soon find out that you have a shabby looking desk. So to keep your desk neater, longer – adopt the habit of not eating at your desk.
No dumping stuff in your drawers! Drawers should have only the items they are supposed to have. If there is a new item which you have not planned for, assign a space immediately and keep in in that space. We tend to stuff items that we are unsure of into drawers and forget about them. It remains hidden and out of view but soon it becomes chaotic and frustrating when we actually need to find something in the drawers.
Do not get up without replacing items! Do not get up from your chair without ensuring that everything is back in its place…regardless of how pressed for time you maybe. We may think we will replace them later but believe me when I say that if you don’t do it now it will never get done.
Keep the desk space distraction free: Do not keep things that are unrelated to the work on your desk. When your desk is clutter free and has only relevant work-related items you will find that work gets done faster. Do not keep your girlfriend’s pictures, memorabilia or pet pictures here. There are many other places in your house where you can keep these. This space is for only work-related stuff and it is better to keep the desk space work focused.
Some products that can help you get organized- Cord baskets and plastic ties- The cords of the laptops, power banks and chargers etc. are quite irritating and tend to be always in the way when you have important things to get done. A good way is to get a cord basket as well as a few plastic ties. You can use the plastic ties to bundle up the cords and then place them in a cord basket which can be placed under the desk or on the side. You may need to attach some hooks under your desk or on the sides to fix the cord baskets but once setup, it will ensure that the pesky cords are out of the way. If there is an outlet hub it can also be placed in it so that the entire cord clutter can be hidden away.
Drawer organizer – As mentioned the 4th step of organizing, you can get a few drawer organizers from Amazon or any office stationery store. These drawer organizers are handy mechanisms to organize your drawer spaces as they tend to be the first to get cluttered.
A monitor stand- if you are using a desktop it would be useful to get a monitor stand. Usually these are made of glass or plastic. It allows you to elevate the screen and also provides space under the monitor to keep things that need to be accessed quickly. It is also great for your posture, your eyes and your neck. The monitor stand also allows you a space underneath to tuck away your keyboard and mouse when not in use, giving a clean look to your desk.
Penholders- A pen holder is an absolute necessary to keep your pens and pencils in one place. Do not go for a cheap ones, instead go for something big enough to hold your all your pens, pencils and markers without toppling over. You could also invest in attachable pen holders which can be attached to the monitor thereby keeping the desk clear and ensuring that the items on it are accessible.
Get on the cloud- The new trend towards paperless office is something we can also adopt for our Home office. Reduce the use of paper as it can pile up easily and create clutter. Maybe you can have important documents scanned and uploaded onto your Google Drive, Dropbox or any other such service. You can then move the documents filed in folders and organize them on shelves away from your desk.
(**Note- I find papers are the greatest culprits for most of the mess on our desks. You need to have a way to immediately file any individual paper that comes across your desk. This habit alone will ensure that your desk is mostly clean. While it may be difficult to go completely paperless now you can always organize the papers properly using folders. Go onto Amazon and buy yourself a few folders for handling this menace)
Related question
How to surf safely online – Use a good anti-virus. Your password must be complex with special characters, lower case and upper-case letters. Confirm the site’s security (https vs. http). Be selective with whom you share your info: only government’s or financial institution’s secured sites. Use a credit card with a low limit for online payments…
Where should your home office be located? The best place for a home office is in spare room, so you can close the door at the end of the day, leaving your work behind. This room should be located in a quiet area of the house, such as a basement, and used as an office only. This will reduce the likelihood of unwanted interruptions impacting your work environment.