How I Organize My Office Part 1: My Plan

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In my post about the New Year’s Organizing Revolution: Office, I revealed to you my new and improved, reorganized office space.

Here are the before and after pictures again:

Maybe you’re scratching your head about the clothes in the office’s closet.  The explanation to that is that I wanted to try out putting our entire family’s wardrobe in a separate room from where anyone slept.  The only place in the house for this to have worked was the office.  I was hoping that it would make my life easier having it all in one central location so as not to disturb anyone sleeping when clothes were needed.

It didn’t work out like I’d hoped.  So I put everyone’s clothes back where they were meant to be so I could use the office closet for office supplies and Clever Container inventory.

Here’s a detailed explanation of what I did:

Of course the first step I had to take was create a plan.  This space has so many different things going on in it I couldn’t risk reorganizing it without a plan.  Here are the things I knew I wanted to use the space for:

• Clever Container
• Office Supplies
• Arts and Crafts
• Military Paper Work
• Books

Once I had my list of things I planned to use in the office I then worked on breaking the space down in zones just like I did for the garage.

• Zone 1 — The desk:  This one is pretty obvious, but since the office pretty much revolves around my actual workspace, I knew it was crucial for me to think about how I wanted it set up before I proceeded with the rest.  Since I virtually cannot function with my desk area being cluttered, I decided to go much more minimal by only keeping small items on it such as my desk envy, push pins, keenex, and paper clips.
• Zone 2 — Regularly used office supplies and tools:  Being that the bookshelf right next to the desk was so close to it I decided to put everything on it that would be used often such as my sophisticated file tote, my file the pile organizer, envelopes, etc.
• Zone 3 — Arts and crafts: On the other side of the desk is the dresser that used to have the kids clothes in it.  Once I got the clothes out I planned to use it for all of my arts and crafts supplies for both myself and the kids.
• Zone 4 — Clever Container inventory and everything else: On the top shelf of the closet I intended to put things I rarely ever used, on the book shelf was where I would put books, and household binders, our wrapping paper supplies, and then inventory in the dresser.

How do you plan to organize your office?

Stay tuned Friday to see exactly how I organized zones 1 and 2.

(Disclosure: this post contains my affiliate links)

The other posts in this series:

• How I Organize My Office Part 2: Zones 1 And 2
• How I Organize My Office Part 3: Zones 3 and 4

Related posts:

1. How To Organize A Garage With Bonus Tips On Organizing Military Gear: Part 1
2. How To Organize A Garage Part 2: Purging And Starting To Organize
3. New Year’s Organizing Revolution Challenge: Office
4. Mommy’s Business Goals For 2013, and the plan for reaching them
5. Organize Your Paper Party Week #7: The Sunday Basket