Organizing a home office desk is essential maximizing productivity, optimizing comfort and decorating in a way that makes you happy. Once you have your office desk, office chair, and computer, you will need to add a variety of smaller items to organize your work. You can arrange everything exactly how you want, but you should pay special attention to accessibility. For example, if you have to walk across the room to reach something you frequently use, changes need to be made. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
1. Place your home office desk where it can prove most useful. You are going to need plenty of space behind and to the sides of your desk. Ideally you should be able to look out a window from where you will be sitting, but do not place the desk directly in front of a window. Otherwise you are wasting valuable wall space for affixing things like calendars, shelves and bulletin boards.
2. Make sure there is plenty of room behind your chair for getting into and out of position. For wood floors, protect it with a hard plastic or leather office mat. For carpets, an office mat will do wonders for mobility. There is nothing worse than having to grunt your way around the office. Mobility affects the way in which you will organize satellite furniture, such as file cabinets.
3. Place your computer on your office desk in such a way that you do not have to strain to reach the keyboard. Make sure you can reach the monitor so you can adjust brightness and contrast without having to get out of your chair.
4. Consider your chair the center of a circle of productivity. Ideally you should be able to swivel around and travel just a few feet to reach file cabinets, fax machines, book shelves and other office equipment. Placing office furniture and equipment in such a way frees up space on, in and around your office desk.
5. Keep the surface of your desk as clear as possible. This allows you to spread out paperwork, presentations and other works-in-progress. Consider the surface of your office desk a workspace, not a storage facility.
6. Things to include on your office desk surface are the computer, telephone, Rolodex, pen and an in/out box. Keep it minimal and restrict your permanent desktop fixtures to things you use almost all the time or need to access while on the phone.
7. The drawers of your office desk should contain a limited amount of each kind of office supply you will need, such as paper, pens, paper clips, and the like. This allows you to keep a variety of supplies at the tips of your fingers. You can store backup supplies in a storage closet in your office and refill your desk drawers as necessary.
8. Keep your printer and computer tower (if you are using a desktop model and not a laptop) within reach. They should be to the left or right of you, and you should be able to operate both without getting out of your chair. This will decrease fatigue and increase productivity. It should be close enough to encourage you to use your equipment at the drop of a hat, but far enough to be well out of your way until you need it.
9. Use walls to your advantage. The wall in front of your desk, if applicable, can hold calendars, shelves, white boards, reminders, a clock, and whatever else you would like to be able to see simply by elevating your head to look.
Tags: office desk, your office, your office desk, your chair, your desk, should able