6 Signs Your Home Office Needs A Serious Organizational And Storage Overhaul
Is your home office as clean as it could be? Maybe you’ve gotten used to the fact that there are piles of paperwork everywhere, you can’t find anything and that you have 17 staplers because you keep buying them as you can never find one when you need it! This article from Chris Humphrey gives you 6 signs to look for that you’re in need of a home-office declutter.
There’s a lot to be said for having “a place for everything and everything in its place”. In people’s everyday life, order creates a highly efficient process for accomplishing tasks or responsibilities. Likewise, it creates room for new things that fare better in meeting current needs.
In the business world, effective organization is known to elevate standards, operations, and even the entity’s values. When a company adheres firmly to order, it is able to better secure its success. That’s because not only does it ensure productivity, but it also makes challenges much easier to overcome.
Unfortunately, pursuing order and organization doesn’t come naturally for everybody; perhaps you may be struggling with it yourself. Do you often waste a lot of time just looking for items that you need in your home office in order to go about your tasks? Do you frequently forget where you place things? Do you find yourself working in cramped conditions that your body aches more than it should after getting things done?
If you do, then you clearly need to get organized.
Organizing your personal workplace is easy. You just need to be quite deliberate about it; sit down, plan how you can get things together, and identify solutions that can be a great help to your goal, according to providers of business storage services. There is an abundance of solutions out there, so even if you discover that you have more than what your home office can properly accommodate, you don’t have to worry.
But how do you know how badly you need an organization and storage solution apart from the problems cited earlier? Here are six other signs.
1. Clutter everywhere
It’s not just when things are not where they need to be; clutter is a situation wherein movement becomes difficult because of the sheer volume of items kept in various corners of your home office.
2. You have multiples of certain items.
Most of the time when you have duplicates or multiples of certain items, it only means that you had to resort to purchasing another because you couldn’t locate what you needed when you needed it.
3. You’ve forgotten to take care of tasks because you lost the sticky note you wrote the reminder on.
This normally happens because things get buried under the clutter easily, and naturally, you will get around to the tasks whose reminders you see right away, completely forgetting the more urgent ones that were pushed down the pile.
4. The sheer amount of things around overwhelms you.
You find yourself not knowing what task to tackle first because of the disorder and the mounds of things surrounding you. When you start losing the focus and motivation to work because of clutter and disorder, it’s time to clean up and organize.
5. Pest infestation
See ants and other bugs in your home office quite often? That’s probably because trash and the things you use have gotten mixed up together, and creepy crawlies always thrive in piles that create dark little nooks they can turn into a home. You have a serious clutter and disorganization problem if insects instinctively believe they can turn your home office into their own abode.
6. Your allergies are often triggered.
A home office that’s not orderly is difficult to clean. You probably don’t bother cleaning, which is why your workplace is dusty, and every time you rummage through the clutter, dust flies everywhere (sending you into a coughing or sneezing fit). If your home office is making you sick, you need to start organizing it so you can transform it into a sanitary place to get your job done.
Conclusion
If you want to be successful in the work you need to accomplish every day, it’s imperative to organize your space. Make sure that you only have the things that you need present in your home office and find strategic locations for them so you can go about every task in a highly efficient manner.
As for all the other items and equipment that you don’t regularly use but you cannot dispose of, turn to self-storage services. There are facilities perfect for storing office equipment and other materials that are cluttering your home office. They provide 24/7 access to clients, so anytime you need to retrieve anything from the unit or pods you have rented, you can easily do so.
Editors Thoughts
I thought I’d add a little piece to the end of Chris’ article to give you some tips on how you can start to declutter your home office (or any area of your home for that matter), and what to do if you’re recognising any of the signs above.
Firstly, if you’re struggling under a mound of clutter, not keeping your work areas clean and perhaps are generally feeling down and unmotivated to do anything about it then this can be signs of stress and/or depression so it’s important to look for the signs and know what help is available.
Of course, you could just be super busy and maybe sorting out your desk is the last thing in your mind (or, as usually happens with me, it gets so bad and you don’t know where to start!) but you will be able to blitz it in no time at all – and you’ll feel better for doing so, honest!
Check out the following resources on Flipping Heck for more information on office organisation and decluttering:
- Autumn Cleaning Challenge: Challenge 1 – Office & Desk Organisation
- Declutter Your Home, Declutter Your Mind
- Review: Marie Kondo’s “The Life Changing Magic Of Tidying Up”
- April Challenge: Spring Clean Your Computer
- Follow Chris Humphrey on:
