8 Simple Ways to Declutter Your Office

As your business grows, you will get busier, and your office will get more cluttered. According to Small Business Trends, a cluttered workspace is less productive. Therefore, if you want to improve efficiency, you should have a system in place that ensures that your workplace stays decluttered. However, while this may look like a simple task, it is quite easy to become accustomed to clutter, especially if you spend most of your time in the office. A cluttered office can cause organizational issues, which can take time for you to realize.

Tips on How to Declutter Your Office

Remove all items in your office

If you truly want to declutter your workspace, you should start from scratch. Remove all the items in your office, including your drawers, computers, and shelves. Place your items in neat piles in another room or on the floor. Now that your office is empty wipe down all surfaces and clean your PCs.

Determine what you need in your office

When everything is still outside, spare some time to evaluate what you will need in your office and what needs to go. For most people, clutter piles up because the brain tricks them into believing that everything in the office is crucial. When you find items that you no longer require or things that you had forgotten exist, you should get rid of them.
Decide where to keep the remaining items

Now that you know what you should keep, your next step is to determine where to keep them. Where you place your items is equally important because you will need to access them quickly. Therefore, organize items in your workspace based on how regularly you will be using them. The stuff you most often use should go in the closet drawer, and everything else can go in faraway drawers. If you have several tax and customer files, then you may need a secure AAA Mobile Storage.

Use your phone to take a photo

You have most likely visited another office and found clutter that the owner was genuinely unaware of. This is most likely the case in your office. Visitors may see your office from a different perspective, and they will tend to be more observant of clutter that you may never notice.

To test this synopsis, take a photograph of your office with your phone from the main office door. This will help you to see your office the same way your visitors do. If you don’t find clutter from that photo, take many photos from different angles. These photographs will help you to pinpoint areas that may need decluttering and cleaning.

Tame your cables

From laptop and phone chargers to headphone dongles and HDMI cables, the cables in your office may seem to multiply. Whether these cables are on top of the desk or underneath it, it isn’t easy to get them under control. In fact, most people end up ignoring them. However, ignoring this issue may lead to problems with your electronics. Additionally, disorganized cables can delay you from identifying where the problem is. You can tame your cables by labeling them during installation and use a system like Cablox to arrange your cables in a neat and organized manner.

Create a hidden storage

If using traditional shelves isn’t appealing to you, you have a few other options. For instance, pegboard is a popular way to hide routers, cables, and other gadgets behind your office desk. You can also use magnets to mount some of your important items or hide other stuff behind your monitor.

Digitize all files

If your office is cluttered, then most of the clutter may be paper-based. These can include documents, sticky notes, business cards, and meeting notes, among others. Paper clutter can occupy most of your office space and you won’t need them regularly. Therefore, instead of preserving all this paper clutter, you can digitize the important documents by scanning the documents or typing them.

There are several mobile apps that you can use to scan your documents and store them on your phone. Take the photos of important documents that you don’t want to lose, and then recycle or discard the paper versions.

Clean your office every evening

Even after decluttering your office, your workspace will still get messy during the day. And that’s okay because it shows you’re working. However, keeping it messy will start becoming a problem. Therefore, you need to prevent this from happening by cleaning your desk and office every evening.

Bottom Line

Your office isn’t just your workspace, it’s a place where you and your employees spend most of your time. Therefore, its organization will not only affect physical cleanliness but also affect productivity. With this in mind, ensure that you organize your office files and maintain a flexible work environment to ensure that you maximize your time and effort.