10 Top Tips to Organise your Office Life

It has become more common for people to work from home but not everyone has taken the leap to make this permanent. Either way, your space and time needs to be organised to ensure productivity. Here are 10 top tips to help you organise your office life.

Do an audit

Identify exactly what you will need in order to achieve the vision you have for your office space.

Sift, sort and chuck

Going through paperwork can be a drag but it’s a vital part of creating an organised office. You should also dispose of old equipment that isn’t working even though it seems very at home on your office floor!

Equip yourself

Part of acquiring an organised office life might, is the need to equip it properly. Invest in functional items such as wall-mounted organisers or desk paper trays, noticeboards for planning and correspondence with other staff members, a shredder, productivity software, possibly training and staff development as well as furniture.

Create a system

A good filing system is vital. Invest in something that functions for your needs such as drop-file systems to lever-arch files to filing cabinets.

Go paperless

As much as possible, consider going paper-less. Many businesses are going this route to save trees (and their sanity). Do some research around options available to you.

Create a work plan

Schedule all the tasks you have to do. So for example, schedule that Mondays are for admin, Tuesdays are for marketing and so on. Keep to your schedule and you are guaranteed to be more productive and achieve you goals.

Consolidate daily planning

Operate from one diary (electronic or otherwise) that has enough space to plan your day and write some notes when necessary. If you have a notebook for ideas and notes, then use one at a time otherwise you run the risk of forgetting which notebook you used to write information in.

Especially for work-at-home(rs)

Define your space and make space

You shouldn’t have to sift through toys to get to your documents so if you don’t have a dedicated room for work, try to partition space wisely to avoid ‘home-work’ contamination.

Set boundaries early on and reinforce them

Make sure that everyone in your home environment knows that they only disturb you if they really have to. This is so tough to implement but really valuable if you get it right.

Factor in personal activities

Personal activities will also come up so remember to schedule them into your day. This is probably the one thing that work-at-home(rs) struggle with the most because it is so easy to get sidetracked and tempted by a coffee with friends. Make sure these ‘private’ activities fit your day’s purpose.