How to declutter your home office

Home offices are often areas we overlook when decluttering. But with many of us working from home or hybrid working, we need our workspaces to serve us well. Luckily, Professional Organiser Zoë Berry from LIFE / EDIT is here to help. She shares her guide to decluttering your home office and advice for keeping it tidy.

Zoë’s step-by-step guide to decluttering your home office

Step one

Take everything out of your drawers, cabinets and cupboards and lay it all out in categories, e.g., pens, notebooks, paperwork, etc. Laying everything out means you’ll be faced with everything you’ve got and can have an honest conversation with yourself.

Step two

Decide if you want each item to stay or go. Ask yourself these questions for every item: Do I need it? If so, how many of this item do I need? Is it broken? Is it one of my favourites? In one home we decluttered someone had a record 92 notebooks! A lot of people have no idea how many of each item they have, or even where things are, so they keep buying more. Following this process means you won’t buy stuff you already have.

Step three

Make a list of how long you need to keep paperwork. There are some items you should keep forever (e.g., marriage certificates, house deeds), some for their lifetime (e.g., vehicle documents, rental agreements), some for seven years (e.g., anything needed for a tax return), and some for a year (e.g., payslips, utility bills). Usually, if you can access documents online it’s not necessary to keep printed copies. You can also scan copies of important documents and store them digitally to save physical storage space. Shred anything that’s not needed.

Step four

Unplug and discard any cables and cords you don’t need. This will help you reduce clutter and find the right ones when you need them. Consider adding cable trunking to the underside of a desk to keep floor space clear.

Step five

Next, give your office a good clean.

Step six

Gather the items you want to keep and before you put them back ask yourself how often you’ll use them. Then place them accordingly, with items you use daily kept close by.

Step seven

At this stage you can buy any extra storage, if needed. You’ll be amazed how often you already have the storage space you need after a declutter.

Step eight

Recycle or donate your unwanted office items. At LIFE / EDIT we’re proud that we donate and recycle 90% of what we remove from homes. It can be worth offering office items to youth groups, churches, charities, schools and nurseries. Use local Facebook Groups to give away items too.

Have you got any tips for finding motivation to declutter?

Sticking to a process will mean you don’t get overwhelmed when decluttering. Create some accountability too. Tell a partner or friend about your plan to declutter and ask them to check your progress by a set date. An end vision is something that can really keep people going if they’re feeling overwhelmed too. What does your ideal office look like? How does it feel? Thinking in this way can be really motivating.

Does a home office declutter need to be tackled in one go?

It depends on the person. We work over a day but we’re a team and focussed on the task. If it’s not realistic for your schedule, do it bit by bit. Sometimes starting small means you’ll feel motivated to keep decluttering each day. You could divide your decluttering into time slots or sections, e.g., a desk one day, a cupboard the next.

How can you keep an office clutter free?

After you’ve done your big reset, you hopefully won’t have to do one again! You’ll have to keep chipping away at it to keep your office decluttered though. You might want to do a five-minute tidy every evening and to build that into your routine. Once a month maybe spend an hour decluttering and make that part of your routine too.

What advice would you give to someone who doesn’t have a dedicated home office?

There are lots of ways you can work well and not have it impact on the rest of the house. I work at the kitchen table and have a dedicated drawer in a sideboard. I pop all my office bits into a box and then into the drawer at the end of the day. Another option is to have an IKEA Nissafors trolley to tidy everything away when you’ve finished working.

Image credits

Images 2 and 6 copyright Helen Pugh Photography.