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Let’s start with the most important thing: no one makes their desk messy on purpose. It happens one item at a time, and it’s very easy to overlook. But a messy desk can hurt your productivity and, at the very least, break the golden rule of organizing: everything must have a home. It’s easy to overlook the importance of keeping your workspace organized, and that’s exactly why I’ll walk you through 5 super-quick fixes for the biggest organizing woes your desk is causing.
The good news is, a desk is small. This won’t take hours; it just takes a few moments throughout your day to tackle each project.
1. Start With the Cable Nest
We all have it: a power bar with six things plugged into it, a knot of cords, and a thick layer of dust. This makes even a completely clear desk feel like total chaos.
This is a super simple fix and really adds a touch of class to your desk. Drop the whole mess into a cable management box. The lid clicks off, the power bar goes in, the cords route out through slots in the back, and voila…no more nest! Measure your power bar first so that the box can fit your existing power strip. This whole project takes less than 10 minutes.
2. Give Collectibles a Proper Home
Most of us have things on our desks we’ve collected throughout our careers that we actually like and are proud of: books, photos, collectibles. They clutter up the desk even though they are well-intentioned. Rather than leaving them as is and working around them, there’s a simpler way. A desktop shelf lifts up and reveres these collected treasures, and gives you back the working surface. Measure your desk depth and the clearance above it, then pick your shape.
If you have height to use, this is the ideal desk organizer for you. It’s easy to assemble and comes with open shelving unit for ample storage.
If you want a low profile and flexible placement, opt for this desktop bookshelf made of high-quality waterproof and wear-resistant wood.
This bookshelf organizer spans between 1-2 feet–what more space do you need?
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3. Give Active Paper Somewhere to Land
There is a difference between paper you need this week and paper you need to file, and most people only have a system for the latter, leaving the former in an annoying stack beside the keyboard, or worse, scattered all over the desktop.
A small upright sorter is the super simple solution here. Three slots covers most people: today, this week, waiting on somebody else. Or, configure it differently and have a spot for papers to be filed, papers needed this week, papers waiting on someone else, etc.
4. Home for Headphones
Lots of us use headphones at our desks. Taking calls, editing, recording, heck, even gaming off-hours! Headphones are a major space hog on your desk. They’re big, clunky, and take up as much space as a birthday cake.
The solution is simple and pretty cool: get a clamp-on under-desk hook and hang them from the underside of the desk. As the name implies, it clamps to the desk edge, so there’s no adhesive, nothing drilled, and it’s movable whenever you want. This one comes as a two-pack, so the second goes on the other side for a bag or a controller. It buys back a surprising amount of desk. Super cool!
5. Fix the Deep Desk Drawer Drama
Many standard office desks in a cubicle have (at least) one deep drawer built for hanging file folders. Almost nobody uses it for that anymore. So it becomes a pit where supplies, work bags, snacks, cables, and corporate swag hang out in a completely disorganized fashion, of course.
This one’s almost too easy to fif. Fabric drawer organizers meant for bedroom dressers fit these drawers well, offer good depth, and come in mixed sizes, so you can build a grid around what you actually store. This set of six gives you two each of small, medium and large. Remember to measure the inside of the drawer first and work out how many packs fill it edge to edge.
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