The Battle against Home Office Clutter
The first step to winning a battle is to know your opponent.
What are your office organization weak spots?
When I look around my desk, I see a variety of different types of clutter:
- things that don’t have a “home”
- things that got set down “just for right now.”
- mail that hasn’t been sorted
- bills that need filed
- the never ending tangle of computer cords
My desk drawers are like black holes (things go in never to be seen again).
Now that we have identified the opponent, what would victory look like in the battle against clutter?
I am a piler by nature, although I do get obsessive about my files sometimes. I like to keep my current project at my finger tips.
When I sit down to work, I don’t want to be running all over the house putting away things that were set down on my desk “just for right now,” or finding homes for homeless items. When I sit down at my desk I want to work.
Success for me, in the battle against office clutter, would be to ONLY have my current project on my desktop, that and a cup of coffee.
We have identified the opponent, and created a vision for what final success would look like, now it is time to create a plan of attack.
1. My desk is actually a piece of plywood sitting on top of two filing cabinets. I mentioned that the drawers are like black holes, actually only one drawer is a black hole/junk drawer. The other three drawers have defined purposes (home files, office files, and scrapbooking).
I want to take the fourth drawer and turn it into a “To Do” drawer. I usually have 2 or three projects running at a time, and different things to work on each day. The papers from each of the projects can take over my desk top. I am going to empty my black hole junk drawer and fill it with files for each day of the week. This will be my daily staging area.
2. The main reason I don’t file my bills and papers right away is because my file drawers (for both home and office) are over crowded. The second step in my attack is to purge my files. Time to get out the paper shredder.
3. The final step in my attack is to find a small box that will be my put away box. When I sit down to work, I don’t want to take time to run around the house putting things away. If I have a small box, I can throw homeless items in the box and put them away at the end of the day (or at least when the box gets full).
Tags: Cleaning, Hospitality
