by Charles Simmins

Created on: January 30, 2009   Last Updated: June 13, 2009

An office is not just a place to work. It is an example of how you work. Organizing your office efficiently will speed up your work process. It will ensure that priorities are easily seen and actionable. The act of organization will reinforce organized thinking habits that will aid problem solving.

Start with a blank slate, an empty room. What furniture do you need in the office to perform the day to day tasks of your job? As you decide on each piece of furniture to place in your office, evaluate how it adds to your ability to work.

Do you need a desk? How big a desk? How many drawers? If the desk is going to be the center of your workspace, give yourself room to work and to access the most immediate papers and no more. Your desk is too big if it is buried under multiple piles of papers.

Your desk chair is important, too. It must be comfortable, maneuverable and allow you to reach your work.

Do you need a computer? Most people will, but if a computer is not the center of your job duties, you may not need it. If you do not have a computer in your office, it will be very difficult for you to spend all day on e-mail, or Twitter, or playing on-line poker. Do not put a computer in your office if it is primarily a time waster.

Placing a computer properly in an office can increase efficiency. You may need room to work with papers as well as on the computer. In that case, the computer should not dominate your desktop. With the changes in monitor size and computer styling, its footprint can be greatly reduced. The CPU can go on the floor. The monitor can be a flat screen.

Do you need a printer at your desk? Many offices are discovering that a shared, network printer provides greater efficiency, reduces printer supply costs and free up space in individual offices. So many documents are electronically stored and transmitted now that having a printer in your office may be unnecessary.

File cabinets take up room. In order to organize your office efficiently, you will need to consider just what must, must, be stored in the office. If most of the files, most of the file drawers, will rarely be opened, why not find somewhere else for those file cabinets? Reducing the clutter in your office makes it a more efficient office.

Bookshelves are another decor choice that you will need to consider carefully. If your office is designed to provide a visitor with a specific impression about you, you may want to include bookshelves. A lawyer will want law books in view of visitors to demonstrate his professionalism. You may also have a number of books that you use as part of your job, reference books, that may need to be in your organized, efficient office. When deciding on bookshelves, choose those that hold just the books you require.

Do you have visitors? You may need one or two extra chairs for visits and meetings. Holding larger meeting in your office is inefficient because it does not allow you to separate from your work to concentrate on the meeting. Meetings should be held in rooms designed for them, not your office.

Do you need a coffee table, a coffee maker, a refrigerator? Do you want your telephone on your desk or on a stand? If you are trying to organize your office efficiently, every item you add should add to your productivity and your ability to focus on your tasks and duties. Be ruthless about the bric-a-brac that distracts you or is a time waster.

All of the items in your office should be easily reachable. Whether you zoom around in your chair or just reach out, an efficiently organized office makes it easy to do your work. Distractions and time wasters have been eliminated and you have just the tools that you need to be effective. That is how to organize your office efficiently.

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