Realistically the office is one room that I am sure will take a good week to declutter and organise. As I have only dedicated one day to it we are only going to do the basics, then gradually like all the other rooms in the house, when you have some spare time use it to organise another area within the office, ie the filing cabinet, cupboards etc.
Clean – The Office
Below is the general cleaning checklist:
[wlchecklist name=’CleanDay14′]
Declutter – Office Desk
The office desk can easily become messy with paper clutter such as bills, receipts, kids school notes etc or it could be your dumping zone leaving it a very messy workspace. I know myself I can’t work when my desk is a mess.
Todays task is to declutter your office desk and your top desk drawer, that’s it, nothing more as we don’t have time for a complete overhaul. This in turn will hopefully improve your productivity when your at your desk.
Steps to clear your office desk:
[wlchecklist name=’DeclutterDay14′]
I use the drawer organisers to keep keep the top drawer tidy. Here are my essentials that I use every day, in the next drawers down I keep my label machine, notepads and other stationery items.
I keep all my bills in my bill organiser, read more about it here.
After I come home from a day of shopping I take all my receipts out of the shopping bags and file them into my receipts box. Every few weeks (weekly would be preferable, but sometimes time gets away from me), we go through our receipts and enter our spending into our budget.
Couple the Budget with the Bill Organiser and you are on the road to organised finances!
Bill organiser and budget are available in my shop. Use coupon code 20daysfinances to get 20% off at checkout. Click here to download
Organise – Organise office desk
Now that you have decluttered your office desk it will be easier and more motivating to keep it tidy.
[wlchecklist name=’OrganiseDay14′]
There is something about a candle that I find very calming, having it flickering next to my computer screen helps give me some clarity and calm me down if I feel a little frazzled.
Read more: 12 ways to boost your productivity in the office
New Habit – Keep a clutter-free desk
[wlchecklist name=’NewHabitDay14′]
5 Minutes Only – Unsubscribe from emails
[wlchecklist name=’5minutesonlyDay14′]
DOWNLOAD
Print the daily sheet and checklists to keep for reference while you are completing the above tasks.
- DAY 14 DAILY TASK SHEET – file behind ‘Daily Task’ divider – click to download.
- Use the general room clean checklists you have already printed
35 comments
Hi Kat,
Thanks for all your organisation tips I have found them to be so helpful.
The budget system sounds great I have always wanted something like this but didn’t know where to start, now I will have no excuse!
With your bill organiser I was wondering if there will be a new issue for 2016?
Thanks once again for all your great ideas I am slowly getting my house in order.
Hi Kim, the bill organiser is till December 2016, I will make one soon for 2017 🙂
My office is in a little nook but still gets messy. I’ve managed to organise it into a great space that will be easy to keep clean and under control. My husbands office is a different story ?
I don’t have an office, so am going to clean and organise the baby’s room instead 🙂
Oh, but getting rid of her teeny tiny clothes is going to be hard 🙁
Ooh yes i remember doing the exact same thing, it is hard. I kept a few special things i just couldn’t bring myself to part with. And it brings back so many memories of when they were so tiny.:)
Hi Kat how would you advise organising and storing policy documents etc for insurances etc – we have a huge filing cabinet stuffed full of paperwork that I would love to get rid of. thank you
ooh no Alison I’m afraid to say that that is where we store ours, in a filing cabinet which is hidden away out of site. Hopefully somebody else will have an idea??
Alison – do you have access to a scanner? I file everything electronically.
Alison, have you considered going paperless?
Scan each document to your computer and store it in a virtual filing cabinet!
It will take up no physical room, doesn’t collect dust and it can’t be burnt or washed away in flood (I know about this from experience).
Just be sure to back up your data on either a portable hard drive or, even better, to a cloud (such as One Drive).
Hi Kat – Is there a printable checklist for the office desk for Day 14? Thanks 🙂
Naomi
Hi Naomi, For day 14 it is just a general room clean checklist.:)
I am looking forward to using the budget. I liked your idea on a receipts bin, as I tend to get out of control with this. My Howard Storage Vac Seal containers arrived yesterday, so here I was at midnight, cleaning my fridge and using the containers. The fridge looks great, and I think I will waste less food. Some great ideas Kat 🙂
Susanne
It will Susanne, it will stay fresh longer!
I have had a busy day – Created a better workspace for me 🙂 And doing some more sentimental de-cluttering!! (Ticking things off my original goal list) YAYE!!
I am looking into creating a proper “office nook” 🙂 It will be my next challenge!
Beautifully tidy Charlene!
Hi Kat. I am loving the challenge even though I am behind. I am thankful for your lists so I can keep plodding away at it. THANK YOU for gift. I needed it I was getting discouraged because life takes over and the challenge gets put aside. I will catch up. Also I am having trouble accessing “click here to access all of the weeks daily printables”. It takes me to the boxes with 11, 12 etc then when I click on one of these I get a box that says Day 1 or day 2. Now it is doing it when I click on “click here to view days “”. I’m not sure what is happening. I was hoping someone else would have this problem but no one has posted about it that I have seen. Thank you for your help.
Ooh thank you for letting me know Christine, I have fixed up those pages. Don’t be discouraged about being behind, you can take this challenge at your own pace and come back to it whenever you need. Small steps are progress!
OMG just came home from shopping with a friend to find my husband cleaning out our office/ study. He didn’t even know it was office day.
One task down! Yay!
Wow, he caught the bug too!
I’m so glad I checked ahead so I can mentally prepare for this task! *Takes a deep breath* I can already see a couple of stationery items that I’ll be needing to keep organised and on top of things! Mum will need to drive me to the shops, I’d better warn her!
Fantastic, love your planning and thinking ahead Megan!
Im glad I checked ahead! This was the one area of my house I was dreading!! hehe
You can do it Alison, one step at a time!!