Stationery cupboard cleaning

Seriously, what is more annoying than the end of a day of work hampered by a lost stapler, an illusive plastic wallet or an evaporated paper clip?

Unorganised stationery can be utterly time-wasting and enormously frustrating. Save time by organising your stationery cupboard and giving it a good clean out. Whether you work in an office-for-one, or you share your stationery hell with an office full of people, you’ll notice a massive change in the way you work and your efficiency if you know exactly where to go to get those mini-vitals.

As with any re-jig, the best option first is to pull everything from where it is at the moment and gather like-things together. Now, when I say pull everything out, I mean it. Not just the things in the current stationery cupboard, but the drawers, trays, boxes and shelves around the office. Get hunting, track down every single item of stationery that has hidden itself in the most obscure places in your office. Gather it all in one spot and get organising. Clean the places you extract stationery from – the chances are they’ve been left to gather dust for a while.

When you’re organising everything, have a range of containers. The smaller items of office stationery seem to have a cracking knack at trawling themselves all over the place, given half a chance. Use square or rectangular containers as they make better use of space than round ones. Go one step further and use a set of see-through plastic drawers or a tray – that way you can see what you have and stop the paper clips from leaping across into the rubber bands compartment!

Let’s assume you have a cupboard available for your office stationery; store paper in stacks at the base, then stick the less-frequently used bits, like the printer cartridges, laminator and empty boxes up high. This approach works just as well on a set of shelves in your work area.

Near where you work you’ll need your ‘little things’ in whatever containers you have chosen. You’re also likely to need plastic wallets, which can slip all over the place, so I find having them open in an in-tray is quite effective, because you don’t have to pick the whole pack up to get just one. Put pens and pencils in an easy-to-reach place and keep them stocked up.

If you share the stationery and someone has to be accountable for stationery comings and goings, you could institute a system that requires colleagues to sign items in and out, or to add initials or a signature that notes what items have been used.

There is a marvellously radical way to organise office equipment. On all the shelves, stick a little label, so that you can see what you’re meant to have there. Excessive though this may seem, at least everyone knows what has to be replaced when a space sits empty! Could it be worth using this system in your office, if you find keeping everyone organised and in stationery a problem?