Is your home office in chaos? Use these Marie Kondo organizing hacks for your home office to get it under control.
Maybe you are not ready to completely dive into Marie Kondo for your whole house or maybe you have done all that already and the only thing that is still glaring at you is your office. Use Marie Kondo’s methods to declutter and organize everything from tax forms to paperclips.
While Marie has you working in categories, sometimes that just isn’t possible and it is more practical to go room by room and work on the categories within each room, so that is how we will tackle the office.
Marie would have you first visualize the space you would like to have. Go ahead and take a minute and do that visualize how you would like it to look and what you would like it to help you accomplish. Got a picture? Great, let’s get started.
If you have read The Life-Changing Art of Tidying Up, you know that Marie breaks her method down into 5 categories: clothing, books, papers, miscellaneous, and sentimental items. We can skip the clothing, unless your office doubles as your closet, it’s just one less thing to worry about! You will likely find the other 4 categories in your office no matter how big or small it is so we will touch on all of them.
Marie Kondo Organizing Hacks for Your Home Office
Decluttering Books
When Marie guides you through a purging she takes one category at a time. She would have you pull out all your books of all kinds and pile them up. In the office, we are going to grab everything that is considered a book: training manuals, fiction, non-fiction, puzzle books, and even the manuals that go with your electronics. Ask yourself, do I really need to hold onto this? Does it truly serve a purpose? Will, I read it again? Be brutal, we are thining out and making more room for the things you truly love to have around you but mostly for peace of mind. If you are still clinging the manual for your beloved blackberry or 1992 car phone you are definitely due for a purge!
Once you have purged the unused and unneeded books and manuals, place the books on your shelves in an organized manner by category, so you can easily find a book when you need it.
Organizing Papers
This one can be tricky for packrats like me. I feel the need to keep every single paper from doctor visits, training sessions, family paperwork that sneaks into my office area, and like items. So much of what we have now can be scanned and kept on the computer, external drives, or the cloud.
Decide what can be shredded and what needs to stay. The shred what you can.
If you need to keep it, decide if you can you make an electronic copy or do file it away. Then scan what you can and shred when complete.
File the papers that you need to keep.
If you need to keep family items in your home office create a separate file or box to keep stored separately from your work documents.
Decluttering Sentimental Items
I love to be surrounded by photos and mementos of my family but I have learned it is important to keep it at a minimum. It helps cut down on clutter and distraction. Start with your desk, is it absolutely necessary to have 3 photos of the family dog and the last 5 years of family fall photos?
Remove everything from your desk but your computer. Then only put back that which is necessary. Now you can add a few sentimental touches.
Do the same with the shelves, credenza, and any other hot spots for clutter in your home office.
Organizing Miscellaneous Office Supplies
Whatever doesn’t fit in the books, papers, and sentimental category will go here. This is going to cover everything from extra office supplies to cords for your gadgets. I had a huge basket of extra phone cords, a monitor cable, battery chargers, and other odds and ends. I also had a large box of extra office supplies.
Grab some small sturdy boxes of the same size, shape, and color to sort your miscellaneous items. Your list may look different but mine was: office supplies (pens, pencils, paperclips, etc…) cords, manuals, thumb drives, SD cards.
Pull everything out and pile it in the middle of the floor to sort.
Locate what items the cords belong to and get rid of any frayed cords or those that are no longer needed. Tag the cords that you must keep, so you know what they belong to.
Test all your pens if they are leftover from eighth grade and dried out it is time to stop storing and just chuck them!
Go through all of your miscellaneous items and determine if you still need them, if they are useful, and if they spark joy to declutter them. Then organize them using small containers in the drawers and on the shelves in your office.
Once you have your office in order, use the Marie Kondo Methods to organize your digital life.