Blog Topic - Office Life

Read our posts about life in an office and share your experience!

May 13,2008

Spring Cleaning!

It’s never too late for spring-cleaning… Summer is just around the corner but there is still time for some last minute spring-cleaning of your office or workspace. Even a few minutes spent sprucing up your office environment can provide huge rewards. A clean, well-organized work area allows you to be more productive, reduces visual distractions and helps relieve your mind of mental clutter. What better way to shake off the winter doldrums than to rid your office of last season’s remnants? Here are some tips to get you started…

1. Paper, paper everywhere, but none that I want to read: Ok, I admit it, I’m a chronic clipper and saver. Articles, magazines, emails, you name it, if it’s the least bit relevant, it gets carefully filed away in a mound on my desk for future reading. But the problem is, I keep getting more!

Take a minute to gather all of these accumulated materials together and quickly go through it, save only the most relevant, pitch the rest. Make it a point to spend a few minutes a day reading one or two articles that are relevant and interesting to you, file those that are most applicable and recycle the rest. If you find that you are continually ignoring certain periodicals, unsubscribe from them.

2. Now, repeat step one for your email inbox. My advice, if you can’t read it the day you get it, delete it, you’ll never have time to go back to it.

3. Give your filing system a quick review. Consolidate similar files and throw out those that are no longer relevant. Put your files in alphabetical order so you can quickly access them in the future.

4. Change up your artifacts. That smiling kitten poster with the motivational saying may have inspired you last fall but after seeing it for months, it has probably overstayed its welcome. Get in the habit of rotating or removing your inspirational articles periodically. Even the most treasured reminders of our lives outside of work will become just another part of the corporate landscape after seeing them day after day.

5. Consider using job folders to organize your hot projects. Job folders are a great way to keep all your current information close at hand and neatly organized. When the project is finished, they can be easily transferred into your filing system.

6. Now tackle the surfaces. Dust and clean your desktop, give your keyboard a good upside down, crumb-removing shake and wipe the grunge off your mouse.

7. For the final touch of spring, add a bit of color with a vase of fresh flowers or a small potted plant.
Posted by Rebecca

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February 27,2008

What does your office say about you?

Last week Forbes.com published an article about office style and what you can learn about a person from their office space. There's also a slideshow associated with a few more interesting tidbits. It's a fairly interesting read, and it might cause you to take stock of the message you're sending to your boss and co-workers.

For instance, I never thought about plants in the office, but apparently employees who bring in a plant may be literally "putting down roots" at work. In general, personalizing the office space makes it feel more like home, and since we spend more time at the office than at home, it makes sense to bring a little of yourself to it. In fact, allowing employees to personalize their space can improve employee morale.

The article reinforces the fact that there may be a fine line to walk with the use of Post-It Notes. An over-reliance on them indicates feeling overwhelmed or preferring to live in a state of chaos. Fortunately for me, the author points out that they aren't entirely a bad thing. In fact, having no Post-It Notes at all is more of a sign of disorganization.

As we would expect, there's a happy medium between a chaotic mess and absolutely no sign of life in an office. Most of us probably fall in that happy medium, as I think I do. Some days are certainly better than others of course.

Take a look at the article . . . see if you need to clean up your act, or is your messy desk just messy enough to mean you're dedicated and fully-engaged in your work?
Posted by Cindy

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January 30,2008

So, you've cut the president's table with an Xacto Knife, now what?

Ok, true story. I had been at my job for about a month when the incident occurred. I was working with foam core, cutting out life-size people for a marketing project . . . you know, typical day at the office. Suddenly my Xacto slipped and I gouged a deep slice into the surface of the president's mahogany conference table. What should I do?

My first thought was to push the table out the window and claim it was stolen. No good, the table was far too heavy, and probably not a good idea since we're on the fourth floor. My second thought was to color the slice in with markers; that didn't work either, it just made the slice bright red. I finally decided to fess up.

I solemnly went back to my desk and prepared an apologetic email, actually to be truthful, groveling would be a better description. I was too chicken to face my boss in person since the last thing she said to me before leaving for the night was "whatever you do, don't cut the president's mahogany table!"

Long story short, I had no reason to panic. There are actually a lot of things you can do to repair woods, laminates and veneers. If you stumbled upon this post in a desperate attempt to repair your president's table, check out the tips in the furniture care section. If not, I'd love to hear some horror stories about your life in the office.
Posted by Rebecca

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