How To Stay Organized At Work: 7 Simple Ways in Your Home Office

Are you wondering how to stay organized at work? Here are 7 simple ways you can do that starting today in your home office.

This post may contain affiliate links, I earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you. Click here for my disclosure policy

Keeping focused and driven can be difficult sometimes, we’re all human. Being at work can be tiresome and exhaustive, generating new ideas and feeling like you’re reaching your full ability and capacity can be hard to grasp. Here are seven ways for you to stay organized and productive when in the office!

How To Stay Organized At Work

List Your Goals

Look At The Bigger Picture

Lack of determination can make you feel burnt out. Feeling motivated in the work you are putting forward is essential to your progress. In the U.S, total factor productivity declined in 60 of the 86 manufacturing industries in 2020. Let’s focus on the bigger picture and put things into perspective. Going to work and staying consistent in your upkeep of the tasks you are set can feel mundane and repetitive. The things that come from this productivity can make it all worth it.

Your goal may be to gain a promotion. Or pay off some debt. Afford a holiday for your family. Go on a shopping spree for yourself. Whatever motivates you, list it. Curate everything you want in your life and use this to push yourself. If you have a wider perspective in viewing your work then you can pinpoint exactly what it is you are working for. Write down everything that you earn a wage for and use this as motivation for your productivity. You’re working for something and towards something. Make that list.

Limit Your Distractions

Put Your Phone in a Drawer

Whatever it is that you find yourself focusing on that isn’t your work, put it to one side. If it has to be put in a drawer, put it there. There are many apps nowadays that can limit the amount of time you spend on a certain website. If you find your productivity being stunted by visits to websites that don’t aid your work or spending too much time on your phone, put actions in place to stop this. Turning your phone off or putting it aside to a location that makes it difficult for you to access it can help a lot more than you think. Plus, being disconnected from social media and technology can be refreshing once you do it but you won’t know until you do so.

We are reliant on phones for entertainment; what once was used for the simple function of contacting people is now an entirely larger thing. Everything quite literally being at the touch or swipe of a finger can be just as bad as it is good. Stay disconnected when you need your work done. Keep your phone to one side and watch how your productivity improves. You may be pleasantly surprised!

Keep Your Workspace Clean and Tidy

Bin Those Empty Wrappers and Crumpled Notes

It may seem tedious, but having an area to work in that isn’t cluttered can help to declutter your thoughts too. Your productivity can sometimes be prevented by the space you are trying to complete the work in. Old ideas that are written down and discarded shouldn’t litter your desk, they should be binned to make room for new ideas that are sure to flow once that desk is tidy. Having your work supplies around you can be essential to your consistent workflow. Getting up every other minute to grab things that you need can be distracting in itself. Keep your desk organized and set up for anything you may need to tackle. Any wrappers or leftover, half-eaten snacks shouldn’t take up room in your workspace. A clean area is a productive area.

Set Yourself a Timer For Breaks

Give Yourself a Healthy Balance

Working hard is productive, yes, but doing too much can mean you begin to stop working yourself. Having a healthy balance between your work, your breaks and your leisure time should be something central to your organization.

Never skip your lunch break. Food is absolutely essential to your productivity. If you’re working, then you’re burning energy and if you haven’t eaten then you have no energy to burn. Don’t skip out on lunch by tricking yourself into thinking that you’re going to get more work done by doing this. Ultimately, you will burn yourself out and end up getting no work done at all. Speaking to colleagues on lunch breaks can even generate new ideas and contributions to the work you are doing. Sometimes getting different perspectives can be beneficial in how successful you are in your work.

Going for lunch will never stunt your productivity, it will always aid it. Setting yourself some time away from your desk will be advantageous to your determination to get the work done and food always makes ideas flow.

Label and Organise To Your Standard

Keep things that belong together, together

It may appear silly at first, but rest assured, this will help you. Having files in the correct place and labels on the right documents will help you have a steady mindset in regard to the order that your work is laid out. Keeping everything up to date and in the correct place will aid your productivity as you will feel a sense of determination from your organization. Employees who keep things tidy and in order are likely to be viewed positively by their superiors and 37% of employees in the U.S. consider recognition the most important factor to them in the workplace.

Check and Categorise Your Emails

View it as a part of your routine

Being consistent in the checking of your emails can be repetitive and annoying to sort through if you have left them long enough. The faster you focus on it, the faster it is solved. Sometimes having spam emails and unnecessary content on your screen can be discouraging and you can feel like you have nowhere to start. A lot of the time, email accounts can have settings that allow you to view emails solely related to different things. For example, with Gmail, categories such as Promotions and Social help to compartmentalize what needs to be read through as a matter of urgency and what does not. The new offers at your favorite clothing website may be important to you usually but put this in your promotions folder, so you can view them in your own time. Receiving emails related to your work is important in staying on top of your workload and your communication with the people you work with.

Keep Your Laptop Running Fast and Efficiently

Don’t Fall Victim to a Lagging Laptop

It’s always discouraging when you want to do something quickly on your laptop, especially your Macbook, and all you’re seeing is a frozen screen or a loading symbol. Tackle this issue head-on. If you can target and pinpoint the issue then you can find a solution and have your Macbook up and running at a speed that aids your productivity. A lot of the time, things such as full hard drives or cluttered cache files can be the main thing slowing your Macbook down.

You may think you’re not technically inclined to fix this yourself. Fear not, it’s not as hard as it appears. Looking at the different types of cache on your Mac is the first step. There are usually three- the browser cache, the system cache, and your app/user cache. You’ll be happy to know these do not have to be cleared individually and can be done with a few clicks. Before you do anything you want to back up any files you don’t want to risk losing and this can be done by using the Cloud or storing it externally on a USB. Your caches are easy to clean and can usually be done with the help of an app so you don’t have to worry about doing everything by yourself.

Check out some of my other office-related posts!

Shop any of these stores and I receive a small commission at no cost to you.

Click here to shop