Offices don’t come cheap, and regardless of whether you’re holed up in a tiny home office or stretched out in a luxurious Sydney CBD high-rise, it’s important to maximise the space available for your business. Carefully considered, ergonomic office designs can have huge benefits for both your employees and clients. But the very first step to redesigning your business space – or choosing to have a professional office fitout in Sydney – is decluttering. This guide will give you a run-down on how to make the most of your space by clearing it up.

 

Why should I declutter?

We all know that our work environment inevitably builds up mountains of unused or unwanted items. Think of all those documents stashed away in filing cabinets, folders, receipts, old stationery, and cardboard boxes. How can you evaluate your office’s potential when you can’t even see its available space? This is why you should remove all unnecessary items and junk from your office before you even consider adding more furniture. You might be surprised by how much space it opens up, or how much extra room you have to manoeuvre in more desks, chairs, or greenery. Plus, a Spring clean can never go amiss, and it’s satisfying to reap the immediate rewards of a deep clean.

 

How do I start?

There are a number of methods for decluttering homes, but these don’t necessarily hold up for businesses, let alone busy Sydney businesses. Marie Kondo’s famous “does this spark joy?” mantra isn’t necessarily going to elicit positive answers when it comes to items like doormats or payroll data (although it might from the coffee machine). For office environments, it can be a more practical method to divide all of your items and supplies into three categories: essential, occasional, and donate.

 

Essential

These are the items, furniture, documents, and equipment that your business simply cannot go without. They will range from keyboards that you use every single day to fire extinguishers that, hopefully, you will never have to use. Either way, these items are still essential, and should be completely excluded from the decluttering process.

 

Occasional

Items in the ‘occasional’ category comprise those that aren’t used on a day-to-day basis, but still come in handy every so often. They can include trolleys, vases, powerboards, and spare chairs. Items in this category should also be excluded from the decluttering process, but you should consider why they are only being used occasionally. Is your projector screen out of date, or is the toaster faulty? Think about whether there are any changes you could make that would shift these items from the ‘occasional’ to ‘essential’ category.

 

Donate

Items fall into this category if they are rarely – or never – used by your business. There comes a point at which those callipers, held on to for ten years ‘just in case’, become a burden to your space and need to go before your Sydney office fitout. Recycle the trash, donate anything usable, and consider selling more valuable items that simply aren’t needed any more. The UNSW Stationery Reuse Centre accepts unwanted stationery from businesses in Sydney like your own. You might even be able to score some extra cash for your office fitout by selling odd bits and pieces.