Spring Cleaning Challenge: An Organized Workspace

Did you think I ditched the Spring Clean Challenge?  I didn’t!  I took last week off because of Holy Week.  I thought it’d be better to focus on fasting and praying rather than cleaning.  You see?  I was just keeping my priorities straight.  Totally not an excuse.  This week I was back in full force, organizing my work space.

I’m convinced every woman needs her own work space in her home.  Whether you are a stay-at-home mom, a mom who works outside of the home, or a single woman, you need a place to keep your life organized and in order. Bills, papers, coupons, school papers, calendars, planners….all of these things need a place to call home. Some woman might be lucky and get a whole office devoted to their own work space, but most of us have to find another space to call our own.

I’ve invaded a wall of our kids’ play room with a desk for my work space.  If we didn’t have this room, I’d find a spot for a small desk so I had my own workspace.  If I had to, I’d cram it into our bedroom or living space.  I think having my own space is that important!

Now I’m going to show you how the space looked before I overhauled it.  No judging please.  It’s not pretty.  There’s a reason why I’m forcing myself to do this Spring Cleaning Challenge.

A couple things to take note of:  1.) The calendar says March.  It was April.  2.) All of those kid pictures are about a year old. Except for the newborn picture of Luke, which is 3 years old.  3.)  I have a hard time throwing away magazines.  Especially magazines with recipes.

So you can see I had my work cut out for me.  I started by clearing the space and wiping the desk clean.

The next step was to get rid of junk that didn’t need to be cluttering up my workspace.  Consolidation was the name of the game.  If it wasn’t something I was using everyday in my workspace, it either got a new home or was pitched.  It was clear that I needed less stuff.

Next, I worked on sorting the things I wanted to keep on my desk.  I put like things together.  Papers that had to do with church went in one pile, Meghan’s school information and papers went into another pile, blog stuff was placed together, etc.  Once I had everything into the categories I wanted them in, I started coming up with a better system for keeping things neat and organized.  First, I knew everything needed a designated place.  Instead of just cramming all the papers into one place, I labeled a bunch of file folders.  I put all the papers into the correct folders.  I touched everything else and made sure that I knew where its home would be.  Everything needed a place.

Then I refreshed the wall decor.  It was kind of cluttered and unfinished before. I didn’t buy anything new, but just swapped out some things I didn’t want there with some things I already had. It is still probably unfinished, but I like how it looks better now.

Here’s what the space looked like when I finished.I had a lot of random books taking up space on my desk that got new homes.  The only three books that got to stay were my planner, my idea notebook, and the Bible.

I have a blog planner that I use also, but it was falling apart. I put it into a binder to keep all its papers together when I’m not using it.  The other binder is where I keep my materials for Elite Blogging Academy. The file folders hold all of my random papers that now have specific places.

I gave my camera and accessories a home.  Although the large orange plastic container (from Land of Nod) takes up a lot of real estate on my desk, I thought it was better to have a place to keep my camera and equipment stored when I’m not using it.  It needs to be handy though, because I use it everyday.  Usually you can find my camera in random places around the house, but mostly it’s just in the middle of my desk.  I like that it has a specific place to go now when I’m finished using it and won’t make my desk look cluttered.

The smaller plastic containers are from Ikea and one of them keeps all my cords and the other one keeps all the paper clips and other office supplies that I need to have on hand.

Overall I’ve learned a few things in this process.  First, I like organizing a lot better than cleaning.  I should have named this the Spring Organizing Challenge because I’d much rather just organize my whole house than clean it.  Anyone with me on that one?  I’ve also learned that getting organized and keeping organized are two different things.  Here’s what I plan to do to keep my workspace organized:

1. Take the time to put things in their designated place.  It might take an extra 20 seconds to put a paper in the right folder, but my life will be so much better if I don’t have paper clutter everywhere.

2.  Take time everyday to deal with my “to-do” folder. I have one folder that is a to-do.  I need to make sure I deal with that each day.

3.  Don’t get more stuff. I don’t need anything else on my desk.

Check back with me in a few months and ask how my desk is looking. Let’s hope it doesn’t become a disaster again!