Balancing Work, Life, and So Much More: Clutter in the Home Office

The Weekly Tittle is an exercise designed to focus your attention on a specific space, aspect, or challenge of decluttering and organizing your home. We assign a new tittle in each webcast/podcast, then check on your progress the following week.

Clear Space to Work

This week’s assignment is to clear the surface of the primary place where you carry out “office work” tasks—i.e., your desktop, dedicated work surface, or any place where work materials have taken over:

• Start by throwing out trash, collecting recycling, returning used coffee mugs to the kitchen, and so on. Take anything that belongs elsewhere in your home to its rightful place.
• Gather any paper that needs filing. If you’ve allotted enough time to do so, file it right now. Otherwise, set it aside with a clear label to indicate that it needs to be filed.
• Reduce the volume of personal or decorative items on your work surface. It’s okay to keep a few cherished items to inspire or energize your work, but anything else should be assigned a new home elsewhere.
• Create a parking space for current work projects, such as a rack, box, drawer, or bin. Collect papers, folders, and reference materials related to those projects into the designated spot.
• Don’t forget to check the floor around the workspace, too. It’s likely you’ve been dropping things near the desk on the floor, and those need to be included in the refresh.

For the full discussion of this week’s tittle, watch the Weekly Tittle segment on YouTube.