Opinion Editorials

The secret to an organized desk and a tidy office

(Opinion) Organized offices might make you wonder “how do they do that?” and it’s the right time of year to emulate the one thing that well-organized people do to keep tidy.

Dawn Brotherton, Senior Staff Writer

Published

January 8, 2015

organized decluttered

Time to get organized!

Every January, you hear and see hundreds of ads for storage solutions. It makes you wonder why, with all of these containers and de-cluttering ideas, would anyone still have a problem?

Author Marie Kondo asserts that it’s not that people don’t have the skills to tidy up, but a lack of awareness and the lack of ability to make it a habit. She believes that success is dependent on finding the right mindset and the right technique. Just putting your items out of sight creates an illusion that you have no clutter. It doesn’t address the underlying problem of having no idea what you have or what you need.

Read also: Can an organized desk kill your productivity?

Kondo breaks down the act of tidying into two steps. First, decide whether or not to dispose of something, then decide where to put it. You have go through what you have and make decisions about what to throw away. Kondo recommends to approach this in a different manner. Consider what you choose to keep and why. Do this by category, not room, so that you see the full impact of what you have.

How would this work in your office?

Go through all of your unused computer equipment in your office. With each piece, ask yourself why you’re storing it. A lot of people save it because they don’t know how to delete the information on it. There are many businesses that can erase it or take the hard drive out to protect your data. Then, the hardware can be recycled or donated. If you do need to keep something, make sure it’s for the right reasons. What you do choose to keep should be kept in one place. After you’ve gone through your computer equipment, move on to office supplies. How often do you go out to buy things you already have because the supplies are not centrally located?

Your business has an obligation to keep documentation and records, but you can get rid of some things after a period of time. All too often, it’s easy just to add to the storage room at the end of every year without discarding what you don’t need. The solution isn’t more storage, but carefully choosing what you keep.

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In this article:Organization, productivity

Written By Dawn Brotherton, Senior Staff Writer

Dawn Brotherton is a Sr. Staff Writer at The American Genius with an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Central Oklahoma. She is an experienced business writer with over 10 years of experience in SEO and content creation. Since 2017, she has earned $60K+ in grant writing for a local community center, which assists disadvantaged adults in the area.

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