Office System

Plan a System so Your Office Will Flow Smoothly

Organizing any office, you have to consider the flow.  How will the office function the smoothest?  If you do not have any kind of plan, you will be wasting precious time and get frustrated. Why? Because you will be having to jump up to get things, or looking for things that should be right within hands reach. 

Let me show you a pictures from an  office that didn’t work.

Here is one that I was evaluated for a client.

Plan Office Zones

1) Plan your office in Zones
From where seated at your desk you should have zones.  The zones determine what you use daily, weekly and maybe monthly.

Zone A – The area right around your seat.  You use these things daily and should be within easy reach (scissors, stapler, pens/pencils, paper, file drawer that you access daily)

Zone B – Area just outside of Zone A.  Not too far away, maybe  along reach or turning your desk chair around to reach the copier or extra ream of paper.

Zone C – Items you don’t use nearly as frequently. Supplies, extra pencils, staples for stapler, files that you don’t access daily.

2) Clean out and sort your office

Decide what you use in the office. No kids games, no sewing projects, no basketballs (you get the picture)
Decide if you like it, use it and need it – if so.. keep it  If not decide if it should go into another room, be donated or thrown away.

3) Plan out what you are going to use in your office for storage and where it will go
I suggest planning it on graph paper. Measure and make sure things will fit the way you want them.

4) Put your office back together again after cleaning it well.

The After picture

Just a little bit of good planning can make an office very functional.

This was written as a guest post for Daze of Adventure last January.