Expert Office Advice

Are you drowning in papers? Is your office so cluttered, you don’t know where to start when it comes to cleaning? Don’t despair, there is hope for you. The thing to do is break down your tasks into small chunks. Take one chunk at a time, and then you won’t feel overwhelmed.

The first task should be disposing of rubbish. Rubbish is anything you don’t need. Throw out duplicate copies and outdated information. Any papers containing personal information should be shredded. You may be able to cut your paper pile in half just by throwing unneeded papers away. Next, sort the remaining papers into piles. Each pile has its own category; such as “clients”, “employees”, “financial”, etc. After you’ve finished sorting the papers, file each pile in the appropriate file folder. Hopefully you have already established a filing system. If you haven’t, you need to. A filing system is necessary to keep any office organised and de-cluttered.

To set up your filing system, start with one filing cabinet having two to four drawers, depending on your needs. Purchase hanging file folders to fit in your cabinet. Be sure to buy labels for the folders as well. You may want to get colour coded labels to help you identify certain files more easily. There are different methods to setting up your filing system, such as alphabetic, numeric, geographic, subject, and chronologic.

In an alphabetic filing system, documents are grouped together by the first letters of the name, from A to Z. This type of system works for any volume of documents. It is best used when filing records by personal or company name.

In a numeric filing system, numbers are assigned to each file name and a master list is referred to when locating a file. Large file centres (consisting of several thousand documents) are more likely to use a numeric filing system than smaller centres. If your office is small, you may want to use another type of filing system.

Geographic filing systems are organised by locality, then alphabetically or numerically by account name or number. Government entities and large corporations are more likely to use this system.

Subject filing is the arranging of documents by a given subject. Records are filed by a description instead of by a name or number. A subject folder may include any combination of documents relating to a certain subject. Filing by subject can work if your records are minimal, and you’re the only person who has access to them. It’s easy for you to file the records in a logical sequence that can be remembered by you, but it’s difficult if the files are shared by others. Other people may not understand your filing system and have difficulty finding the files they need.

You can also file your records by date, a system referred to as chronologic filing. In this system, you file your items according to the date received. It can work well for dated material, but it requires an index in order to locate the files. Filing your papers is only half the battle. You still need to keep your office dusted and vacuumed, on a regular basis. You can choose to hire a cleaning service if you’d like. Before the cleaning service arrives, make sure all papers, mugs, pencils, etc. are put away and all the rubbish has been thrown out. This makes it easier for the cleaning service to do its job well.

The most important thing to remember is to keep your office organised if you want to keep it clean. Make filing your papers a daily habit. Before you leave at the end of the day, take the last 15 minutes to organise your desk. That way, you’ll be starting the next day with a clean, fresh space and you won’t feel overwhelmed as soon as you walk in the door.

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Commercial cleaning resources and further information:

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