Do you want to be more organized in your office or place of work?

Are you looking for a few quick tips to help you put things in order?

Getting organized can be quite a challenge when you are in a work environment.

Not only do you have to deal with your own work tools and belongings, you have to navigate between your work assignments, colleagues, coworkers, meetings, appointments, and more.

The good news is that you can set up basic structures to help you keep things in line.

In this post, I offer eight quick tips to help you get organized at work.

Use a calendar or planner.

If you’re not already using a calendar or planner at work, you should do everything in your power to set one up! Having a work calendar or planner makes it easy to keep track of meetings, appointments, and project deadlines.

Depending on the environment in which you work, and your individual preferences, you may choose to use digital or paper calendar.

Here’s a few tips to help you with that:

If you work in a fast-paced office, you may find it helpful to use a digital calendar. You’ll be able to quickly schedule and sync entries with any of your other devices, share your calendar with others, accept group meetings and appointments, scheduling recurring tasks and projects, set alarms, add reminders, block out time in your calendar, and more. It’s worth taking a look into all the specific features of the digital calendar used in your office.

If you work in a slower-paced environment, or if you prefer to go the analog route, you may choose to use a paper planner or calendar. One of the nice things about a paper planner is that it is “offline,” plus, it forces you to interact with it on a regular basis. Select a planner setup that meets your needs, and be sure to review and update your calendar entries daily. Don’t forget to create a specific storage location for your calendar, such as in a drawer, bookshelf, or on top of your desk, so you’ll always know where to find it.

Make use of your inbox and outbox.

Are you making full use of that postal inbox/outbox sitting on top of your desk? If not, now’s a great time to put those boxes into service. Begin by removing all extraneous items from the inbox/outbox, such as books, files, magazines, office supplies. Then, place these items where they belong, such as a bookcase, magazine rack, filing cabinet, desk drawer, or closet.

Next, dust the boxes throughly inside and out,  and be sure to wipe everything down with a disinfectant wipe. When you’re finished, replace the boxes on top of your desk or workstation, or remount back on the wall.

Lastly, be sure to let coworkers know your inbox/outbox is ready to receive incoming, and hold outgoing postal mail.

Roundup those office supplies.

Office supplies are a must in any office, but are you inadvertently making things more complicated for yourself? Make a point to have a centralized location for office supplies in your cubicle, office, or workspace. It will be easier to find items when you need them, plus, you’ll be able to quickly take stock, and order more supplies as necessary.

What are some easy ways to keep office supplies in order? Contain pens, pencils, and other writing implements in containers in a desk drawer or on workspace surfaces. Use small shallow trays, cups, or containers to store paper and binder clips, staples, and pushpins in drawers or on top of a counter.

Corral miscellaneous supplies into medium to large-sized baskets, boxes, or containers and store items on freestanding shelving, a bookcase shelf, or on top of a filing cabinet.

Designate storage areas for work tools.

It doesn’t matter if you work in a traditional office setting, workshop, studio, or home office; having a designated area for your work tools just makes sense. If you’ve never explicitly identified a storage area for your work tools, there’s no time like the present to start! All you have to do is create a storage area cheatsheet.

To begin, grab a piece of paper and a pen. Then, write down all of the tools you use on a regular basis in your workspace. If you work in a traditional office setting you might come up with the following: notebooks, pens, sticky notes, scissors, stapler, cellphone tape. The next task is to identify exactly where each of these items will be stored when they’re not in use.

So, your list might turn into something like the following:

• Notebooks – in the pull-out shelving about my desk
• Pens – in the pencup on the right side of my desk, or in the center pull-out drawer of my desk
• Sticky notes – in the center pull-out drawer of my desk
• Scissors – in the pencup on the right side of my desk
• Staples – next to the pencup on the right side of my desk
• Cellphone tape – next to my printer

When you’ve finished with your list, you can move items to their respective locations. Get in the habit of returning items back to each of the locations you’ve described. You can keep your cheatsheet around for quick reference, such as in a notebook, in your planner or calendar, or behind a cabinet door, until you know exactly where items should be returned.

Embrace quick tidy ups.

You don’t have to spend hours on end to keep things in order at the office. All you need is a few minutes’ at the beginning and end of each day. Doing so will help cut down on clutter and keep your workspace in order. Even a mere five minutes’ worth of tidying up office supplies and materials can truly work wonders!

Don’t know where to start? You can refer back to your storage area cheatsheet (see above) for a refresher as to where items belong. Or, you can try any of these simple everyday tasks. Feel free to add to the list or modify it as necessary:

• Return tools and equipment back to their storage places
• Neatly gather papers and documents
• Return files to filing cabinet or file holders
• Shelf books, magazines, and reference binders in bookcases or cabinets
• Shred confidential or sensitive documents or materials
• Replace office supplies in drawers or cabinets
• Place outgoing mail in outbox
• Push chairs underneath desks
• Wipe down non-porous surfaces with disinfectant wipes

How about you? What do you find to be the most difficult thing about getting organized at work? Which of these tips are you going to implement in your cubicle, office, or workspace? Join the conversation and leave a comment below!