An Organized Workspace Will Improve Productivity

Do you know what the secret is to a productive, efficient office space? It’s an organized workspace! No matter the size of your desk, transforming it into a functional space is the key. That means that everything you need for your daily work is within arm’s reach. This creates a simplified, systematic work experience, and ultimately improves your productivity. Remember that organizing is more than just finding a place for everything. Your workflow should be considered as well as thought given to the location for specific items. Your NYC Professional Office Organizer is going to walk you through the process.

Your Daily Tasks

Let’s start by thinking about what tasks you do daily. Make a list of the tasks and tools needed to accomplish them. Take inventory of where those items are currently located in your office. Is your trash can near your door rather than near your desk? Are you storing your active client files on the other side of your office? Two things happen when the items you need are not near you while you are working. First, you spend valuable time getting up and searching for those items throughout the day. Second, if you must get up to return an item to its proper storage place or toss out a piece of scrap paper, you may be tempted to leave those items on your desk while you continue to work. This leads to clutter and clutter piles up fast!

Customize Your Workflow

Now that you know what items you use with regularity, it’s time to figure out your workflow and organize your office accordingly. Look at the storage locations already setup in your office. Which ones are most accessible when seated at your desk? In most cases, the main storage location will be on or in your desk. If you take a lot of phone calls, you want to have your phone right on your desk and near the arm you use to answer calls. If you tend to take lots of notes, have a notepad and pens in your top desk drawer. Keep items that are used together in close proximity to each other. For example, keep a ream of paper near your printer. When you are assigning locations, remember to keep the items used most often in the top drawers and on the shelves within arm’s reach. Those items you use less frequently can be in the bottom drawers or very top or bottom shelves.

Get Rid of the Excess

An important key to making this work is ridding your office of the excess items. It’s important to have a backup supply of items you often use, like pens or file folders, but not all those items need to be stored right within your most valuable space. Store some of those items in your desk, and then store the excess in a filing cabinet or a shelf elsewhere in your office. Don’t clutter up valuable storage space with excess. Keep enough to keep you productive and store the rest!

Your goal in creating an organized workspace is minimizing the times during the day that you need to disrupt your workflow to go across the room to find an important file or grab a new pack of Post-It’s. For more hands-on office organizing strategies and support, reach out to your NYC Professional Office Organizer.