Happy New Year! Congratulations: You’ve managed to come this far. The road hasn’t been easy, and we commend you. Now, we know New Year resolutions can be a tired cliché and discouraging since they tend to expire around mid-January. Or they are perhaps not at the forefront of our priorities. If nothing else, in 2021, we should strive to keep from losing our momentum.
Most of us spend a significant portion of our lives working, and within that demographic (as of December 2020), around 42 percent of working Americans have crafted a home office to stay safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But working is not all we do. On top of that, we’re taking care of our children, tending to our spouses, housekeeping, and engaging in some much needed “me time”—which means that, sometimes, things slip through the cracks. The state of your workspace doesn’t have to be one of them.
To celebrate Clean Your Desk Day and keep your home office decluttered year-round, here are some of our favorite tips:
1. Keep Desk Accessories Minimal
The first step to any deep-cleaning endeavor is to declutter. It probably comes as no surprise to you that clutter is a culprit of anxiety, which is a blocker for productivity. So, to start, give your home office the full Marie Kondo treatment, ridding it of items that are just there to congest your space or that no longer “spark joy.”
Your desk may be one of those surfaces that are overwhelmed with objects: letter trays, file holders, pencil cups, picture frames, notebooks, water bottles, potted plants, and more. The goal should be to keep a few efficient and visually pleasing accessories that contribute to a streamlined look.
As you’ll discover in the remainder of this blog, there are other ways you can easily access the items you need to execute a day’s work.
2. Take Advantage of Wall Space
Moving your to-do lists, post-its, write-in calendars, and framed photos to your wall can relieve some of the burden off your desk. Best of all, essential items can be within an arm’s reach—and you won’t have to turn out your desk drawers to find them.
Other utilitarian items you can hang near your workspace include cork boards and whiteboards with important memos in addition to magazine racks and mail sorters—everything you need when you need it most.
And listen: Sometimes, it’s okay to mix business with pleasure. If your space can afford it, you can also hang inspiration in the form of decorative posters and wall art that you can admire from the comfort of your desk chair.
3. Shelves, Shelves, Shelves!
In the same spirit, shelves—whether they’re in the form of bookcases, built-in shelves, suspended shelves, or cubbies—are also a suitable storage option for items you need easy access to. We think it’s time to reclaim your elbow room.
A bookcase is an obvious choice for providing storage space while keeping items clearly within view. And if you like to display your collection of knickknacks, cubbies can enable just that, in addition to being able to hold hard-to-store inventory, like extra-large binders. You can even slide storage baskets in the cubbies to hide loose items or stow away small office supplies, such as push pins, paper clips, and staples.
Alternatively, built-in shelves and suspended shelves (including floating shelves) provide ways to maximize your office space, removing the need for other furniture pieces, like file cabinets, from taking up precious floor space. With less furniture resting up against your walls, your room will look less cluttered and evoke a breath of fresh air.
4. Use Drawer Organizers
Just because your desk may have a pull-out drawer or two, that doesn’t mean you’re out of the woods just yet. While we believe in the anti-clutter mantra “out of sight, out of mind,” keeping a messy drawer of loose change, scattered pens, random receipts, and hidden shame is a slippery slope into a storied landfill of your own creation.
Desk organizer trays will ensure you have nothing to hide. Trust us: It is for your own good.
5. Color Coordinate Your Surroundings
Good news: Cleaning a home office can turn into an opportunity for a makeover. It is said that interior design can inspire creativity and spur productivity. With that in mind, we suggest color coordinating your surroundings to create a space that looks thoughtfully assembled. Not only does this tactic result in an aesthetically pleasing setup, but it also provides a sense of unity, thereby keeping our anxieties at bay and our faculties focused.
Pro tip: Light and neutral palettes can create the illusion of open space whereas darker tones have the effect of dwarfing a room, which can leave us overwhelmed.
Call or Visit Us
Be sure to check out our inventory of home office furniture to kick off the new year in style. Whether you call or visit us in-store, our experts are always happy to help you find what you need. Contact us today!