Office Organization

Being organized in the workplace can be crucial to project management and even promotions. It can be frustrating when other coworkers are disorganized, but somehow it’s even more so when it’s you. You know better, but sometimes things can slip through the cracks. Here are two crucial tips that will make your work life a little smoother.

1.    Place for files. There are certain files that you don't use often, but you still need to keep. Have a special place for them that you’ll remember. When there’s that once in a blue moon chance you need it, you’ll know right where it is.

2.    Mirror in digital files. Have a digital copy of all your files. Then if you need to send a document to somebody else, it’s already in the computer. Label files similarly to your paper files to make the systems congruous.

Complete tasks today that will make tomorrow smoother.

Organizing for National Kitchen and Bath Month

The kitchen and bathroom are the two most frequented rooms in the house. Everyone touches and moves things around, so it can become a little chaotic. Create a system that suits everyone’s schedules, likes, and preferences.

The key to this, though, is having every person within the household contribute to organizing it. This way they will be more likely to keep the system flowing since they know why it was done that way in the first place. Plus, it is more convenient for them.

For the kitchen:

Start by discarding food that is old and expired, and make a shopping list of what needs to be replaced. Keep items that you want your little ones able to reach on the lower shelves. If there are things you don’t want them getting into, put them on higher shelves out of reach. Give everyone a whole shelf, section of a shelf or a cabinet to keep their food in. If you have multiple children, separate shareables into baggies and label them; everyone gets their share and you don’t get a headache later on.

For the bathroom:

For your cabinets, keep what you most often need towards the front. In households with children, any cleaning solutions should be kept safely guarded from their access. Consider keeping Items that shouldn’t get wet, such as toilet paper, tissues, cotton balls, and feminine products in an enclosed container. This keeps them dry from any sink splashes and humidity from the shower. Also, have a separate container with extras for guests: toothbrushes, toothpaste, facial cleansers, makeup remover pads, shavers, feminine products, contact cases/solution, deodorant.

If you follow these tips, family, roommates, friends, and guests will owe you a huge “Thank you!”

Creating Your Own Organizing Style

Cleanliness and organization have a certain expectation that comes with it. Imagine a clean room. Is it sparse with everything perfectly spaced out? Or, are there lots of things out - yet everything has a place? Everyone’s vision of “clean” is different; there’s nothing wrong with that.

It’s time to let go of the stigma that’s stuck to “clean.” If it’s nearly impossible for you to keep your home or office together, perhaps you need to reevaluate what your idea of organized is. It may look like chaos, but is it organized chaos? There’s a difference between knowing where everything is and your space looking like a magazine photo shoot. Don’t organize in a way that you feel is expected; organize in a way that works best for you.

There is no right and wrong way of organizing. The whole point of it in the first place is to help prevent you from forgetting and losing things; you know where everything is. Stop trying to live up to someone else’s standards!