I feel much less intimidated doing my own organizing using Open Spaces tools…I highly recommend them to anyone who sincerely wants to get organized, get control, and make life simpler and in the end to have time for the important things in life. — Sara B. Burke, The City Studio Dance Center
Better Life Habits Blog
How to have less stuff in your office.
It's pretty easy for an office to get out of control, stuff-wise. Things come into our space with very little effort, but it requires time and effort -- even if just a little bit of both -- to get things...
Sign up for the Open Spaces e–Zine
Sign up to receive the free Get to the Point! e-newsletter.
Cost of Disorganization
Office Overhaul
A cluttered environment can create a cluttered mind.
It’s not unusual to find that in the course of months or years, office clutter can get out of control. Paper, projects, files, boxes and general “stuff” come into our space without much effort, and the accumulation begins. In an ideal world we’d offload this potential clutter with the same ease and regularity that it shows up, but that’s not always the case. And then what you get is an office that looks like, perhaps, a tornado hit it. Note: I should mention that everyone has a different level of tolerance for clutter. There’s no minimum or maximum amount of clutter that necessitates a change. It’s all about what you’re comfortable with and what environment allows you to do your best work.
Ideally what you want are habits and methods for doing things that prevent an office from getting cluttered out of control in the first place, but once it’s in that state an office overhaul is the first necessary step.
Causes
A number of things can be at the root of why an office has gotten so out-of-control. Below are some possible causes, which are areas we look at to determine how they are working for you. And if you don’t have some of the things below, that could be part of the challenge right there!
- Office furniture and placement
- Organizing tools (desktop sorters, in/out baskets, etc.)
- Processes and systems for handling paper, phone calls, e–mail, etc. If they exist, are they working?
- How projects are managed from start to finish and beyond.
- How routine tasks are handled
Office Overhaul Fees
Because the Office Overhaul can often require anywhere from a full day to a number of days to complete, the process begins with an on-site, free-of-charge assessment. Within 48 hours of that assessment you’ll receive a proposal with two or more affordable options from which to choose.