For an organized office you need a little office planning and a new office design“, if your heart is set on a office makeover. We have now finished our decluttering, which made it very simple to give the office a thorough clean. Now we are onto the next step, article 3/7 in our organized office series. The focus on this section of our organized office planning and design is to now work out, what spaces we have available for our work area’s, and what tasks and equipment will be used, and where.
To do this we are going to think back to when we were in kindergarten. Remember back in those days, how the room was set up. For each activity there was a cupboard, or station, as we will call them. The dress up box, the art cupboard, the reading corner etc.
And, remember before going onto the next activity, how we always would pack up the activity that we were currently working on. That’s the mindset, for planning and design of the office and for keeping the office organized.
Planning Office space in a small area”planning and office design
Planning and organizing
In your office planning and when drawing up your office design try and think like a kindergarten teacher.
By thinking in this way your office will be organized into what I call stations (area to place your tools eg cupboards or desk)
And into zones (area where the work takes place).
There will be a place for everything and the office design will function in a way that will easily allow you to keep your office clean and keep a highly organized office.
Planning your office design for maximum efficiency and productivity
Think back to the way your kindergarten teacher had the room organized and the classes projects and reference material displayed. Each different activity has it’s own group of items needed to carry out the activity.
Remember the dressing up cupboard, the painting cupboard, the nature corner, the Wednesday afternoon art, clipped to a string which lazily meandered around the entire room.
A large row of coat racks ran the length of the hall and a large notice board beside the door meant parents would never miss information of up and coming events. Planning your office and your office design done in this way will lead to increased productivity, efficiency and an overall organized office.
Office Design for which tasks are done where
Everybody is able to make their office plan, office design and then organize their office this way by following a few steps and making a written plan to quickly follow and begin to implement.
The main factors to keep in mind when working out your arrangement is to think about which tasks you do on an every day basis.
Which tasks are done more frequently than once throughout the day, Most importantly in respect to the way your office design has been in the past was there any task that you’ve been doing that has been a big inconvenience because of the way your current office lay out.
As an example, you might have to mail out promotional material at times which includes putting together information packs and maybe samples and you’ve always struggled with this by doing it in the small space on your desk in front of your computer.
A small table set up for this purpose close by would make the task far more pleasant as you would be able to spread the work out instead of being all cramped up. If a table is not practical perhaps a fold away card table would do the trick. Remember then to store the materials used for the task in a cupboard or drawer next to where you will put the table.
Office Planning: working out what tasks are done and at what stations
Step 1/ You need now to grab a note book and pen, or your computer program for capturing notes and make a list of all the individual tasks you carry out in your office.
Step 2/ Make a list of the functional stations that you will need to have in the area.
Examples of office tasks and supplies needed to carry out at the station. Eg the computer station, desk station, phone station, mail station, filing, office supplies, book case, promotional material,
- Computer, printer and desk for paper work, paper bin,
- Pens, note pad, paper for printer, printer cartridges, company letter heads, envelopes, labels, manila folders, business cards, with compliments slips, to do sheets, timetable planners,
- Answering the phone and making calls on the phone, taking messages for others, writing out phone orders, giving out product prices, giving out information on different products,
- Phone, address book (digital system or written) message pads, order books for manual orders, currant price lists, box’s of brochures and promotional items, Computer software, WD passport,
- Making up promo packs,sending out price lists, sending out promo packs,stamps, packaging material, sticky tape, masking tape, gaffer tape, bubble wrap, scales, staples, stapler,
- Books for reference/reading/magazines/industry publications/
- Year planner and wall calendar, pin board, pins,
- Financial work
- Folder for bills in and bills to pay, folder for petty cash receipts, filing system for money matters, pens, lead pencil and rubber.
- Folders, clips, in and out trays
- Fridge/ tea and coffee plus milk and plain biscuits for guests.
- Tea and coffee cups, tea, coffee, waste bin
- File cabinets, hanging files, file labels, file sorting labels,
- Paper shredder
- Archives file boxes
- Cleaning the office with rags, dusters, dustpan and broom, cob web tool, mop and bucket, bin lining bags, bigger plastic bags, disinfectant,
“Organized Office Shelf”
Stations and tasks carried out there and supplies needed there
- Main desk 1 + 2 + 5 + 6
- Return desk 3.
- Small table 4 + 5
- Bookcase 6
- Filing cabinets 8 +15
- Chest of drawers 10 12 16
- Paper shredder 14
- Fridge 11
The zone is the part of the office where the station is placed
I find the best way to handle the next part of this task is to put the numbers from the tasks and supplies next to the stations list. This will show you for example that 1+ 2 + 5 + 6, are computer, printer, phones, pens, etc all go on the main desk no 1. station.
You can number your zones, by drawing a plan on a sheet of paper and breaking it up into zones. For the example above you’ll need 8 zones for the 8 different stations. More on zones however in the next post.
Spring Cleaning the Office
Now would be a good time to get your cleaning caddy ready. Because you have everything packed up, it’s the perfect time to give the office a thorough clean.
- Into a bucket or carry caddy you’ll need
- Spray and wipe
- Gloves
- Computer micro fiber cleaning cloth
- Antiseptic wipes
- Rags
- Mr sheen spray and polish
- Floor cleanser
- Vacuum
- Broom, mop and bucket (these will need to get put in a tall cupboard, if you have one, or against the far side of your bookcase, the kitchen or bathroom)
In the future, a cleaning routine/habit, day for your office, once a week, will be a far better option than doing a great big spring clean. (In my opinion anyway. It keeps everything cleaner, and takes far less effort than a great big, all day cleaning session)
Summary
In this post we have worked out the zones in our office, for placing our stations, which is the office furniture. We have numbered the stations, to make an easy list of what supplies go where, and we have numbered the supply groups.
Call to action
How did you go with your office declutter? Let me know in the comments below. If you enjoyed this article and haven’t read the previous two in this series the links are below. You can subscribe to Routine Habit blog and have updates delivered to your inbox or our the RSS feed. Don’t forget to follow us on face book and twitter, I’ll follow you back, just leave me a comment in the comment box with your details.
Series Organized Office Makeover
Blog Challenge Day 35 “Blogging While Angels Sleep”
If this is your first visit to RHB, we are currently doing a blog challenge, 90 posts, in 90 days, in which we are a little behind, however, we are still keeping at it. If you are involved in the blog challenge, today is the 3rd day of our organized office makeover series. For those of us whose, office was needing a makeover, keep on going as your going, and stick with the office makeover tasks, and try and fit a blog post in as well if you’ve enough time. If not, not to worry. Blogging will be much more fun with an organized office.
As always, thanks for reading,
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