March 30, 2022 Paul Randall

Has Spring Sprung In Your Office?

The birds are busy in their nests, the garden is about to burst into life, and the sun is starting to make a few brief, but very welcome, appearances. Yes folks, it looks like spring is finally here.

What is it about this season that’s so wonderful? Is it the longer days that make us feel so positive, or the warmer temperatures that seem to give us a big injection of energy? Whatever it is, make the most of it and put it to good use. Why not start with a bit of a spring clean in your office?

Clear your desk, clear your mind

It’s well known that a clean, tidy, and organised workspace is a big boost to productivity and morale - and it makes sense. How can you think freely and feel positive when you’re surrounded by mounds of paperwork and dust-laden clutter?

Start by clearing everything off your desk and then organise it all into three piles – throw/shred/keep. If you find it hard to be that ruthless, or if you naturally want to put everything in the ‘keep’ pile, you can move some items to a ‘maybe keep’ box. Store it under your desk in a desk pedestal and if you don’t need it in that time, it can all go.

Keep it clean

A dirty, dusty office doesn’t look good to visitors and it’s certainly not good for you. Just cleaning the windows will make a huge difference and instantly make the office feel lighter and brighter. It’s also good to give your phone, keyboard, computer and desk a regular clean. Especially if you eat at your desk, you’ll be shocked at how quickly dust, crumbs, and germs can accumulate.

Have a tidy up day

If the whole office is in need of a clear out, you’ll have to get everyone on board. Find a suitable day, give the whole team plenty of notice and stock up on cleaning sprays and bin bags. It’s a good idea to add a bit of an incentive - make it a dress down day so everyone can muck in without ruining their best work clothes and get pizzas in at lunch time to reward all the effort. You might just find that as well as the obvious benefit of improving your environment, it will act as a team building exercise too.

Get organised

As the old saying goes: ‘A place for everything and everything in its place.’ Take a look at your desk, shelves and storage cupboards - think about if there’s a better way to organise all the files you need for your job and which ones you need close to hand. Do you need extra storage? Is there a way you could tidy up the squirm of cables under your desk, with desk cable management, or can you use boxes or baskets to separate your files so you can find things quickly and easily?

Getting your workspace organised is probably one of the easiest ways to feel like you’re in control of your job and help you feel more productive on a day-to-day basis. If you need additional office storage like drawers or cabinets check out our range at Office Supermarket, or just tell us what you want to achieve and we’ll help you find a solution.

Go Digital

When will we see the paperless office? It’s something that’s been talked about for a while but we all seem a bit reluctant to give up our piles of paper or stop printing everything out. Apart from not being very eco-friendly, it’s also one of the main problems when it comes to keeping everything tidy.

Think about the documents and information you definitely need to keep and see if they can be stored digitally rather than physically. It might be as simple as taking an image of them on your phone, keeping them in ‘the cloud’ or on platforms like Dropbox.

For a completely secure solution, you can enlist the help of a professional company like Iron Mountain. They’ll copy all your most important documents and then return them to you completely indexed and searchable on CD, DVD or hard drive, or convert them all to microfiche or microfilm. If you have sensitive documents you need to destroy, they’ll do that for you too. Imagine how much space you could free up with a service like that!

Give it five

These five top tips will hopefully help you spring into action and get your office looking fresh, clean and super-organised. Then when it’s done, just spend five minutes at the end of each day putting everything back in its proper place so it will stay that way.