It doesn’t seem possible that it has been almost 18 months since I made the shift to working from home full-time. It looks like it will be several more months before I return to the office, so this feels like a good time to turn our attention in the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge to home office decluttering and organizing.
We made a start on this in March we celebrated Organize Your Home Office Day by clearing out our desktop clutter. This week, we’ll declutter and organize our desk drawers and office supplies.
Are you ready for week 31? Let’s get decluttering!
What is the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge?
In this year-long journey, we’re tackling one task at a time with the goal of cleaning up and organizing our homes. If you’ve just joined us, no worries. You can jump right in with this week’s challenge. Just check out the first two posts in the series to download your free checklists.
You can get easy access to all previous weekly posts on the main Decluttering page.
Week 31 – Decluttering our home office
In the early weeks of the decluttering challenge, I mentioned that we don’t have a junk drawer in our kitchen. That’s true! In our house, the junk drawer is in our home office. The top drawer of the desk is a place where junk just seems to accumulate and it’s a bit of a disorganized mess. We also have a small portable plastic drawer unit in our home office that I included in this week’s decluttering.
Here’s a photo of how things looked before I started.
This week’s decluttering and organizing tips
Here are the tips I have from week 31.
- Free up space by taking things like envelopes, pens, highlighters, glue sticks and other office supplies out of the boxes and packages.
- Label your electronic cables. They are a huge challenge to keep organized and, I don’t know about you but, we always seem to have more cables than we have devices. A few years ago, I started labelling cables with the name of the device they go with. This makes it easier to identify orphaned cables when cleaning up. Last year, as part of the 31 Day Declutter Challenge, I sorted out a big box of cables and donated them to an electronics recycling drive.
- Repurpose empty boxes as dividers in desk drawers to keep small items organized. Boxes from smartphones and tablets work great for this.
- Try a use-it-up challenge for office supplies. In my decluttering, I have found literally dozens of pens! Most of them were giveaways at conferences and meetings because I can never resist a free pen. I have made a commitment to not buy another pen until I use them all up! I may never need to buy a pen again.
Let’s keep in touch! Join my mailing list and I’ll email you when I add a new post.
What I got rid of
Here’s what I got rid of this week. Coincidentally, a grand total of 31 items in week 31!
- 2 empty envelope boxes
- 1 broken pedometer
- 1 memory card to USB adapter
- 7 manuals
- 3 old software CDs
- 2 plastic bags
- 1 luggage tag
- 1 button
- 2 unidentified electronics cables
- 1 pen
- 1 piece of unidentified computer hardware
- 3 pen packages
- 1 drafting kit
- 2 dead batteries
- 1 unopened package of magnetic photo sleeves
- 1 twist tie
And…this week’s candidate for most interesting item. A yellow pages phone book from 2014. I think that must have been the last year the phone company actually printed phone books. It seems so odd now, to think about looking up a business or phone number in a book instead of just searching it online.
And, here’s how things look now.
So that’s week 31 done and our desk drawers are much tidier. Next week, I’m tackling the filing cabinet!
If you have friends or family members who could benefit from a little less clutter in their lives, please share this post and spread the word!
Do you have any tips to keep your desk drawers organized? Tell us below.
That phone book! cant believe you found it. You should have kept it. Maybe itmight be valuable one day 😉
I think that about a lot of thinga but it’s unlikely.
Maybe 1000 years from now? It might be worth something to a museum so they could have evidence of how we lived
Maybe but I won’t be around to see it. LOL
That’s awesome, Michelle! Well done on the decluttering of your office desk drawers! It’s amazing when we look at all of the various places pens and office supplies come from (save the ones you purchase). I have a ‘stress ball’ from about 10 years ago, pens with names of places the likes of which I swear I have never been to nor have I heard of them). So good to clear this stuff out! Well, not the pens! LOL
I know. I’m pretty sure I picked up a lot of stuff at conferences but, some of it I have no idea where it came from.
😊
I love the idea of labeling your cords. I will do that now!
It’s definitely a time saver!
I love pens and often feel like I could never have enough of them, but I try to keep them to a usable amount. Nothing thrills me more than finally finishing a pen!
As I just got a new desk, I took the opportunity to go through everything I have between the move and was so pleased to get rid of an abundance of old papers and such. It feels good to be free of clutter. <3
It definitely does. This past week, I have been clearing out and organizing old papers for an upcoming post. It’s amazing how much stuff I have got rid of.
I used to have a serious pen hoarding problem. Lol! I have no idea why I love pens so much! I have an entire drawer full. I finally went through them and threw away the ones that no longer worked. I’m going to take your advice and not buy any more until I use these all up.
Ha ha. Pen hoarding is a sickness!
It is! 🤣
My desk can sure get cluttered with work and mail and bills! My desk has no drawers, but I was fortunate to be able to buy a big set of ikea shelves and storage bins and trays for everything. All my paper stays together, tests have their own bin, I’ve got a binder for each school I work at, and my main therapy supplies are packed in bags under my desk and ready to travel to schools. Clutter is the worst when I want to use a document camera on zoom and have to show my desk!
It sounds like you’re pretty organized Brittany. I love keeping necessary supplies in bins. Back in the days when I was training, I used to have a training toolkit in a totebox that had sticky notes, markers and everything I needed for a training session. It was a great way to stay organized.