The Perfect Time for Some Organization = Now

Whether you work from home on the regular or not, I bet you never thought you’d spend THIS much time inside the same four walls. Let’s make the best of this social distancing and use this valuable time to set into place some organizing strategies to help you save time and money.

Getting organized in your home or office requires two main objectives:

1. deciding what you need to keep
2. determining where to keep it

Now that you’re spending a majority of your time at home, let’s make some decisions on the best place to store those piles that have been lingering on your desk. Let’s create some systems that will pay off for you even after this time has passed.

Take those piles on your desk or floor or chair and sort them into categories. They could be:

• papers that need to be filed
• pictures that need a home
• child’s schoolwork that will eventually go back to class
• empty coffee cups (just take those to the kitchen)
• bills that need to be paid or filed
• trash/shred/recycle

Once you’ve created your categories and decided what you need to have in your office, you’re ready for the next step: determine where it should go.

Take anything out of your office that doesn’t belong in there. I’m talking to you kids’ toys & sports equipment, dishes, shopping bags, pairs of shoes, Amazon boxes…

Next take out anything that needs to go to the trash or recycle bin. Put your shredding pile next to your shredder. Or take it to an office supply store to do it for you.

Now, let’s make decisions on where you are going to store what’s left. This should be things that you use or need to complete work. Where you store something should be close to where you use it. For example, I always tell clients to store their extra printer paper and ink cartridges near the printer. Papers that you need to keep like invoices, medical records, client files or anything else from that category should be stored in a drawer with a hanging file. Now is the perfect time to create those because you can order them to be delivered straight to your house!

When you sit at your desk, you should be able to easily reach anything you might need on a daily basis. This means pads of paper, pens, calendar and glasses should be stored in a top drawer or where you can reach them without getting up.

If you sit at your desk to file papers, your filing cabinet should be close as well. Maybe that means a credenza with a lateral file behind your desk or a portable file box that rolls under your desk.

If you have drawers to store supplies, spark some joy by getting those in order, too. Clean out those drawers of anything that no longer serves you. This could include stubby pencils, pens without ink, illegible receipts, stretched out rubber bands and other trash.

That pile of business cards you’ve been collecting since the last decade? Connect with the people on social media and then toss the card.

Create a list of all of the supplies you need to order so that they can be delivered straight to you. Think about drawer dividers to store office supplies, hanging files, vertical file holders and bulletin boards.

Knowing where things are is half the battle in life. When you spend time looking for things, you’re NOT spending time on high value thinking. If you have to look multiple places for one thing, you’re wasting valuable time. Not to mention mental energy.

Being organized is knowing what you have and where to find it. Now is the perfect time to FINALLY put those systems in place that will pay off for you later.