Tips & Ways To Declutter Your Office In The New Year

Christmas and New Year are both often very busy times for many businesses. Twixmas, however, is generally much quieter. It’s therefore the ideal time to catch up on lower-priority tasks.  

Realistically, in many offices, having a good clean-up is a very low-priority task. It is, however, lovely to go into the New Year with a clean, clutter-free office. With that in mind, Rads Document Storage, share their useful tips to help you declutter. 

Start with a stock take 

Have designated employees check what the company actually has in its storage facilities. This can be rather different to what you think you have in them. In the real world, storage units often end up being places to put items pending their being found a proper home. Then out of sight becomes out of mind and they stay there. 

Ask employees to take ownership of clearing up their own desks as much as they can. If they need help with this (e.g., they really need more storage), then arrange this for them. 

Tag items that you believe can be put out 

Resist the temptation just to throw out anything you find that doesn’t have an obvious home or owner. Instead, give employees a reasonable amount of time to claim them either for work or for their own use. 

If a lot of employees are out of the office, you might want to consider moving items off-site temporarily. You can then give employees a list of what is unclaimed when they are back in the office. If anyone puts in a claim for them, they can be brought back into the office. If not, they can be disposed of (e.g., donated to charity). 

See if any paperwork can be digitised 

Paperwork can accumulate in offices because nobody wants to be the person who decides to throw it out. People know, in principle, that the chances of it being needed are slim to zero. Even so, they hold onto it “just in case”.  

In these situations, the best compromise is generally to digitise the paperwork. This isn’t ideal because you don’t want to encourage the production of digital clutter. It is, however, an improvement since it does clear physical space. 

Assess your storage solutions 

This can be the most important part of any decluttering session. The first question you need to ask yourself is whether or not you are really short of storage space. If you are, then you need to organise storage space elsewhere. You then need to decide what can go into storage and what needs to stay in the office. Alternatively, if you really do need everything to hand, then you may need to look at moving your office, so you have more space. 

In many cases, however, the real problem isn’t the lack of storage space. It’s using storage solutions that don’t actually work for the space and/or the items. The good news is that even offices can often use fairly inexpensive storage solutions, at least in the short term. If they don’t work over the long term, you can upgrade them slowly and potentially donate your old units. 

When picking storage solutions, your first decision is between closed storage units (e.g., drawer units) and open storage units (e.g., shelves). Your second decision is between opaque storage containers (e.g., cardboard boxes) and transparent containers (e.g. clear boxes) or no containers (e.g. hanging items on pegboards). 

You can mix and match these options to suit your particular situation. For example, you could use closed cabinets to store clear containers with different items. This would give a streamlined appearance while making sure that items would still be easy to find. 

Think about where items are stored 

You want items to be stored as close as possible to where they are used. The easier it is for employees to access items, the more likely it is that they will put them back after use. If you know that employees are regularly going to use certain items at the same time, try to corral these items together. For example, you could put them in bags, trays or rolling trolleys. 

Move items where they should be 

Once you have a place for everything, you can put everything in its place. If this is a major job, then feel free to do it in stages. Just make sure that you commit to doing it as quickly as you reasonably can. You can also do some further decluttering at each stage. 

For example, if you have a lot of items that need to be put away, just put them away quickly in broad categories. Don’t worry if you end up with some items in the wrong storage area. 

Then go through them and put them into more accurate categories. Again, you can do this in stages. As you do so, move any items you want to keep that are in the wrong place. Remove any items you identify as being surplus to requirements. 

Create a meaningful inventory of what you have where

Once you’ve decluttered your office, you’ll want to make sure that it stays decluttered. This means you want to make it as easy as possible for your team to clear up after themselves. The starting point for this is an accurate inventory and a map of what is where. Having these means employees don’t have to try to remember where they got an item from. 

Try to put a list of what is kept in each storage unit by each storage unit. Label containers within storage units. In some cases, it can be useful to label individual items. For example, if you have a lot of chargers, put a label on each charger to show what it’s for. 

Encourage your employees to have a digital detox 

Inbox zero is more likely to be a dream than a reality for most of the year. Twixmas is, however, one time of the year when it is potentially achievable. If employees manage to tackle their email, they can move on to other aspects of their digital life. For example, Twixmas is also a great time to purge local folders and network drives.