Solve your workspace issues with these office organisation ideas.
(Image credit: Photo by Daria Shevtsova from Pexels)
Whether you work from an office or a studio, your workspace is more than simply the place where your desk, chair and computer are; it’s the place where you spend your most productive and creative hours. These office organisation ideas will help you create an orderly, mindful space to work from.
Having an organised office or studio is important because studies show it’s harder to concentrate and focus in a disorganised, cluttered or untidy space. Even if you’re lucky enough to love the work you do, wouldn’t it be great to work more efficiently and complete your tasks and projects sooner, giving you more time to spend with friends and family, or work on your passion projects or side hustle?
To make sure you’re making the most of the time you spend working we’ve compiled nine inspiring office organisation ideas so you can get organised once and for all. And if you're looking for more office inspiration, then see our roundups of the best office plants, the best office chairs for back pain and best desks, or see our office storage solutions.
Our top office organisation ideas
01. Create a dedicated workspace
Dedicate a zone within your home for working (Image credit: Image by Yevhen Liashchevskyi from Pixabay)
When it comes to getting organised, you’ll be doing yourself a huge favour if you’re only trying to organise a space that's meant for one purpose: working. If you’re lucky enough to have a home office or studio then this should be simple for you, you just need to ensure you clear out anything that doesn’t belong in your work environment.
If you don’t have a dedicated workspace and are working from a spare bedroom or even your kitchen or living room, it’s important to create a dedicated work zone still. Aim to keep your desk, office chair and everything you'll need to work within close proximity to each other so that you never have to leave your work zone. Perhaps you can fit a desk along the opposite wall to your sofa bed and facing away from it, so that while you’re working everything in your immediate eye-line is your workspace?
02. Utilise all available levels
Office organisation tip: make the most of wall space (Image credit: Photo by Huseyn Kamaladdin from Pexels)
Now that you’ve got rid of anything that doesn’t belong in your office, studio or work zone, it’s time to tidy away what's left. A common mistake is to keep everything on your desk so that it’s always within reach, but many storage solutions make use of different levels to store accessibly, but out of sight.
Storage boxes and filing cabinets will make the most of the space under your desk, while shelves, cork boards or peg boards and hanging wall files will utilise otherwise unused wall space.
03. Establish a simple but effective filing system
An organised filing system will save you tons of time (Image credit: Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels)
Stop your filing cabinet or storage boxes simply becoming places to dump things you’ll never find again by developing a filing system. Purchase dividers for your filing cabinet and have a folder for each client you’re working with or each project you’re working on, and assign categories to each storage box.
04. Use drawer dividers
Using drawer dividers is a simple office organisation tip (Image credit: Amazon)
You may already have a desk, but that’s not enough to stay organised. Use drawer dividers to make the most of the space you have and neatly separate the items into segments.
Organising your items in this way means that pens, paper clips, business cards and sticky notepads are all kept separate, so rather than having to empty an entire drawer to get to what's at the bottom you'll be able to grab and go.
05. Hide ugly wires with a cable tidy system
(Image credit: Amazon)
This office organisation idea is a no-brainer as it solves the problem of the unsightly mess of wires that hang off the back of your desk. Keep all excess wires in a nifty D-Line Cable Tidy Box which has holes in the back for you to feed just enough wire through to reach where you need.
If you have multiple electronic items on your desk then why not also use Vindar cable clips at the back of your desk and feed the wires through? This way the functional end of each wire will remain clipped to your desk, and the excess wire will be neatly tidied away.
06. Keep personal items to a minimum
A plant or globe ornament can add personality to your desk without needing too much space (Image credit: Burst via Pexels)
It's good to have a few personal items around you when you're working, but try and keep to a select few.
Then, just like you’ve got a dedicated workspace, give your personal items their own dedicated space, too. Perhaps fill one a corner of your desk with a plant, or with trinkets or ornaments that inspire you, or keep one end of a shelf free for a few photographs of family or from your travels.
07. Labels, labels, labels
If you don't have a label maker, a marker pen will do (Image credit: Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels)
To paraphrase Monica Gellar, no time spent with a label maker is a waste of time. Whether you take the time to print labels or simply hand write them, having plenty of labels to hand is essential for your office organisation.
Remember our office organisation tip to have specific categories for each of your storage boxes? Use labels to mark up your storage boxes so you don’t forget your system. Following a consistent labelling system will mean you’ll never need to second guess where you’ve put things.
08. Separate past, present and future work
Mood boards are a great way of inspiring creativity (Image credit: Photo by cottonbro from Pexels)
As a creative, it comes with the territory that you’ll constantly be multi-tasking, juggling multiple briefs and pitches at the same time as being knee-deep in on-going projects.
To help you stay on top of things, consider creating separate places for your complete work, current projects, and new ideas. It might be that your filing cabinet is where you file finished work, while you have a storage box, magazine file or letter tray for each project currently in progress.
We love the idea of a ‘new ideas’ cork board where you can pin business cards of clients you want to work with, as well as photographs or material samples you’re not sure what to do with yet.
09. Invest in a 2021 Calendar
Organise your head-space as well as your workspace (Image credit: Photo by Olya Kobruseva from Pexels)
Now that your workspace is well and truly organised, the best way to stick to these principles and keep your space organised is to keep yourself organised. Get yourself one of our recommendations of the best calendars for 2021 and stay on top of your deadlines, meetings and appointments with ease.
Esther Thomas (previously Docherty) is the Audience Development Coordinator at Future, and is responsible for the organisation of the team who oversee Social Media and Search strategy. Day to day she works with brands across Future’s portfolio, including Creative Bloq, to optimise their digital content and develop their audience strategy. Staying organised is Esther's forte, and she brings this experience to the table for Creative Bloq, writing about everything from organisation tips and storage solutions, to buying guides that make home working easier (and neater!).
Beyond Creative Bloq, Esther also writes about fitness for T3.com and runs the blog for the ethical jewellery brand Voice International.
