Is there too much clutter in your office? There are lots of reasons to get rid of office clutter: it could create a bad impression to visitors, make your office hard to clean, affect productivity and even negatively affect aspects such as fire safety. Below are just some of the big steps you can take to reduce office clutter.
Go paperless
Pretty much everything that was once done on paper can now be done digitally. By digitizing all your paper records, you could free up space taken up by cabinets and folders. You’ll have no reason to keep onto stacks of paper. You can also get rid of machinery such as printers that may not be necessary.
If you haven’t already got digital copies of documents, you may be able to scan them. When it comes to legal documents, you may want to contact the company that issued them so that you can create a legally binding digital version. There are apps that can be used to sign contracts digitally – this could prevent the need to print off documents to sign.
Going paperless can not only free up space but save costs. It’s also greener and can help reduce your carbon footprint.
Collect mail virtually
Even after going paperless, you may still receive paper mail. Consider whether you’re able to switch to an email mailing list or digital billing – most companies do this nowadays. You could also look into virtual postbox services. These are able to collect mail for you and relay only the most important letters to you, while some can even give you the option to read mail virtually.
Go minimal with hardware
Offices can have a lot of excess hardware. On top of getting rid of old machinery such as fax machines, consider whether it’s possible to streamline some of your modern tech. Do you really need a separate monitor and computer, or could you opt for an all in one PC? Do you need a separate printer and scanner, or is an all in one printer/scanner a better option? Getting rid of this hardware could free up a lot of space, helping your office to look much neater and tidier.
Designate mugs to employees
Is your mug-to-employee ratio unnecessarily large? To get rid of some of those excess mugs, you could consider designating a single mug to each employee and throwing away the remainder. Of course, if you have guests visiting your office, you may want to keep a couple for them. However, there’s no reason to own 25 mugs in a 6 person office.
Reward employees for tidy desks
If your employees tend to have messy desks, consider coming up with an incentive to keep employees’ desks clean. This could include giving out rewards in the form of a bonus or a day off to the employee that has kept their desk tidiest throughout the year. Make sure to place bins around the office to help motivate employees to throw away waste.