Is your office filled to the brim with clutter? Of course it is, your entire business life has taken place there! As such, you’ve got a lot of mess to deal with, and sometimes you need a weekend or two to deal with all of it. Maybe your office is due for a renovation, or maybe you’re moving out to new premises – either way, your office needs a clear out, and you’ve got to manage it in a time friendly way!
Start with Your Filing Cabinets
Your filing cabinets are going to contain the most important items in the office, thanks to just how much data and/or sensitive material they contain. So, make sure you go through these first of all. Once you have, you can then simply shift the empty cabinets out to the rubbish, or have them moved into your new office with no trouble.
Make sure you’ve got plenty of document boxes ready, and label them accordingly – you should already know what’s in the cabinets, so take an hour or two to sort the papers you pull out into the right box. Take your time here; you don’t want to make a mistake, otherwise you’ll be tearing your hair out trying to rearrange them in your new place.
Recycle Your Old Electronics
In an office clearout, you’re going to discover a boatload of electronics that you never thought you owned! Think about it; tech moves fast, and you’ve been buying new versions of smartphones and tablets and PCs to ensure your business keeps up with the times. And what happens to all the old tech?
Well, now it’s time to shuffle it all out of that drawer or cupboard and recycle it. Either that, or test each one in turn and see how well it still works – you could sell these items online, or donate them to a charity. And as long as your local garbage tip or recycling center has a cable stripper to hand, you don’t have to worry about any of those old wires and plugs either!
Throw Odds into a Box
Anything you don’t know what to do with? Throw it into a spare box! Meticulously sort everywhere else, but use this as a chucking tray. Just throw it in, and then label the box as ‘Odds’, and sort it all out later. That way you’ve only got one ‘random’ box to have to go through, which is certainly a lot less stressful in the long run.
Clear Off Your Desk
And finally, the last thing to do is clear off your desk – why? Because you need to use this as a holding place for any items you don’t know how to pack. If you clear it first, you’ll be clearing it again and again throughout the process of packing up. Don’t waste your time here – leave it till last!
Your office doesn’t have to take an age to clear – you can even manage it in a weekend!
