Welcome back to my 31 Days of Decluttering In December! If you have missed any days in this series, no problem! You can find each day here!
Do you dread working in your office because it is such a mess? Do you dread paying bills every month because you can find them and because there is not work space to actually sit down and pay your bills? Is your office cluttered with paper, supplies like tape, staples, gadgets, a messy desk and way too much paper? Can you find the items you need, when you need them? Well, hopefully after today the only part of paying bills you will dread is simply the money coming out of your bank account!
Today’s decluttering challenge will be a good one if you were nodding your head as you read through the above questions! I will show you how to declutter the office and make it merry and bright for the holidays!
Here are some tips to help with organizing and decluttering your desk and office:
- How much time do you have to devote to decluttering? If it’s 15 minutes, DO NOT throw everything on the floor and try to start from scratch. If you only have 15 minutes, surface clean the desk and be done. If you have longer, plan accordingly! Remember, it’s not that you get everything done, it’s that you are happy with what you can get done. One step forward is better than doing nothing! If your office is really bad, I suggest trying to work on it for 2 increments of 30 minutes each. It will go faster when you break it up and you will be able to focus on what you need to do!
- First, gather up some trash bags and your paper shredder if you have one.
- I like to start with my desk because if that’s the only thing I get done, I can work on it. The first question I ask myself is, “Do I need everything on that desk? I have a lot of gifts on my desk that need to be taken off and placed by the Christmas tree until I can get them wrapped. Any extra things that don’t belong on your desk need to be moved to a new home. When you have a tidy work space, you will be able to concentrate on the tasks at hand and not on the distractions and mess.
- Do you use each item every day? If not, where else could you put those supplies?
- What could be thrown away?
- Does anything need to be ran through the paper shredder?
- Do you need an organizational tool to store your office supplies? If you store like items together, you will know exactly what you have!
- Do you have duplicates that are unnecessary? What can you get rid of?
- Grab a child and give them a piece of paper to test out all pens, pencils, markers, etc. If they don’t work, they go to the trash! My kids actually like this job and it’s kind of time consuming if you have a lot of supplies.
- Now grab all of your office supplies such as pens and pencils and put them together. The same goes for notebooks, printer paper, and office supplies.
- If you have a pile of papers, file them by category. It will be easier to find them later. I read a stat the other day that really resonated with me: we only look at the paper we keep 20% of the time. That means most of it will never be looked at again. I have a paper problem…I’ll admit it, but this little stat made me really think about the important things to keep and what to get rid of. Do you have any documents that can be scanned in case you need to have access to them?
- If you have drawers in your desk, organize them by what is most important on top, followed by the next of importance.
- If you have “pretty” things on your desk, consider adding shelving for these things so you have more work area. You can still enjoy them but have more space. To make your office festive add a poinsettia or a small wreath to give you a holiday feel!
- Make sure when you sit at your desk you can reach your printer, fax machine, etc. If you can’t you will be up and down and not as efficient when you are working. This also goes for filing cabinets and anything else you use regularly.
- If you have a bunch of sticky notes, get them together and add the information to your calendar or make one list either on your phone using EverNote or a similar app so they are all together.
- Do your cords need organized or tied together to eliminate some mess?
- Do you need a bulletin board to store papers that you use on a regular basis? Be careful not to let it become a clutter collection area!
- You should keep all of your bills together whether it’s in a basket, bin, whatever you like as long as it’s big enough for all to fit inside.
- Write down on your calendar when you need to pay bills. Remember to keep them together.
- For your bill paying area, make sure you add stamps, envelopes, a few pens your return address labels and a calculator.
- Do you have old bills or those little payment books that need shredded because you are done paying them and don’t need to keep them. If you do keep them, I have found that by using binders and dividing the bills up by category such as cell phone, electric, etc really keeps them organized. I pay the bill, use my paper punch to add holes and file accordingly. Very easy to find something if you need it later on and also easy to know when it’s time to get rid of those items, they’re filed by date and easy to get rid of what you can. File them right away after you pay bills and you don’t have to look at them again.
You might not finish today with your entire office. That’s ok! Do what you can do! One step at a time!
Don’t forget, in case you have missed any days in this series, here they are! (Don’t worry you can jump in right where we are in the series and go back later if you want to catch up or just finish out what we’re working on with us! I’m so happy that you are joining us in organizing and decluttering your home!)
Have you enjoyed what you read here today? Do you have friends or other women you know that could benefit from this resource? If so, please do me a favor! I have included the links below to share with other intentional women! They’ll be glad you did!
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