5 Tips for Keeping Your Work Desk Organized

5 Tips for Keeping Your Office Desk Organized

A clean and organized desk is an essential starting point for lower stress, more productive days. As more and more people return to the office, their work from home habits may come back with them. While many will have kept their home office space clean and organized, there will certainly be others who will need to re-adjust to office life once again. Wherever you fall on this spectrum, these five tips and organizational tools will help you keep a more clean and organized workspace.

Clean Up Loose Stacks of Papers

Getting caught in the flow of work happens to the best of us. Throughout the course of your day; documents, printouts, and requests will begin to clutter your desk. Keeping a loose stack of unorganized papers causes disorganization in your workspace and can negatively affect your productivity as the day, and week moves on. A quick and easy way to categorize and sort these papers goes as follows:

1. File away what needs to be filed in a neat, and coded manner.
2. Deliver papers, folders, and files to their next destination.
3. Throw away or recycle old, unnecessary paperwork, memos, etc...

Regularly sorting through your stack of papers will help you keep on top of tasks that may have been forgotten, keeps your coworkers/boss content and in the loop, and reduce crowding of your workspace. 

Utilize a Desktop File Organizer/ Filing Cabinets

Picking up from the previous tip, a natural solution to cluttered desks is to utilize desktop file organizers and filing cabinets. These will help you have a codified destination for each paper that may land on your desk. These are useful for storing papers you utilize frequently and also give your coworkers a clear landing spot for paperwork that needs your attention. 

Deep Clean Your Desk

While you are organizing your desktop and moving around papers, just do a quick dust check and wipe down your desk. If your desk isn’t regularly cleaned, you likely have a layer of dust surrounding you. Dust is a cocktail of unsavory particles including dead skin, bug carcasses, germs, viral pathogens, and more. We've written about the negative effects of dust in the workplace and how to reduce buildup. Studies have shown that individual work desks play host to more germs and bacteria than office restrooms. You can easily clean off your desk with a duster, damp towel, or disinfecting wipes.

Organize Your Decorations

Desktop toys and decorations are a wonderful way to spruce up your work area and give your coworkers a glimpse into your interests outside of work. They can also take up a lot of space and further clutter your workstation. 

Without a general rule of thumb for managing these things, it’s best to take this on a per case basis. If you’re the type of person who likes to keep a variety of toys, stress balls, and decorations it’s advisable to keep them, consolidated in one basket that can live on your desk or even on the ground next to you. If you keep pictures or posters on your desk, consider hanging them or placing them on a shelf or cabinet. This will save you precious space while still keeping your flare close by. 

Don’t Eat at Your Desk

Fight the urge to eat lunch at your desk. While catching up on work and email through your lunch break may seem like an attractive option, you're better off taking your food and drink to your cafeteria, away from your desk. Stress management aside, eating lunch at your desk creates opportunities for spilled food and drink to damage paperwork and tech on and around your desk. Taking a break from your computer screen will give you the chance to decompress, socialize, and keep your desk clean.

Keep Work Flowing with Summit

From your desk to your office bathrooms and everywhere in between, Summit Building Services has you covered. Keep your office clean, and running smoothly with comprehensive commercial office cleaning designed around the distinct needs of your facility. Throughout the bidding process, we work with you to design a cleaning plan that meets your cleaning needs and works around your budget. Give us a call at 330-289-6953 or schedule a building walkthrough.