School is back in session and some parents are now working from home. Many households have now discovered that workspaces are at a premium. Most homes do not have an office for each person. And unlike having a desk in which your tools and paperwork can be neatly stored for later retrieval, the home workspace tends to be temporary and varied in its location. This can lead to a lot of frustration and lost productivity as we search for misplaced items and paperwork. Here are some quick steps for organizing a home workspace.
One easy solution for creating a portable workspace is purchase a portable file box. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes and features. My favorite is the ‘Iris Clear Letter-Size Portable File Box with Lid Organizer‘. It is somewhat translucent, has a place to store pencils and small supplies in the lid, and supports the use of hanging file folders (a must for me). They are stackable, but how high do you want to go with that before you’re tempting the fates with a catastrophic collapse into a swirling collage of papers and tears.
Outfitted with a portable file box, the industrious student (or employee) can organize their papers into tabbed manila folders securely contained within a colored hanging file for easy retrieval. I prefer 3 tab manila folders because their larger tab gives me more room on which to write descriptive information. The more information on the tab, the easier it is to find the right folder. And always write the date, and possibly the expiration date (when applicable), on it so you know when you can dispense with it.
A separate storage box can be set up with useful shared materials and tools such as scissors, tape, staplers, hole punches, and erasers. A trip to the hardware store may be your best option to locate a box for these materials. A 15 inch toolbox should hold a holepunch and rulers. There’s usually quite a variety of boxes from which to choose.
Of course, tools for organization only work when used with some discipline and routine. As any parent knows, making a game of ‘clean-up’ motivates their children into another level of industriousness. With a little ingenuity, it may even work on adults too!
Hope this brings a little less confusion and anxiety into your home as we continue to push through 2020.
As always, thanks for reading.
And remember to take the next step…
Mitch