A Change for the Better: Continuing the Office Makeover

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The corner where the filing cabinet stood mid makeover

“Change in all things is sweet,” according to Aristotle, and when it comes to my office I have to agree with the Greek philosopher.

I spent a week over Christmas and New Year making over my office, the Strawberry Patch. I cannot tell you how much difference it has made to my work attitude and mindset. Changing the colour and starting to de-clutter the space in which I work has already done wonders for my productivity.

Sitting here in my calm, new blue-and-white space, writing while Travis plays on Spotify in the background, the dog snoring at my feet, I can see I’m still not quite there yet though. One of the reasons behind making over my office (something I talked about doing for about 18 months) was the fact I felt ill when confronted with the sickly yellow colour of the walls and the constant clutter I managed to create by dumping everything in (and around) my inbox in piles.

The colour issue has now been fixed but the clutter remains, albeit reduced from its previous level. The first step on this de-cluttering mission was to remove the filing cabinet that had been sitting in my office corner, but never actually used (besides dumping stuff on top of it), since we moved here more than two years ago.

That filing cabinet and I had a bit of history. It was the first piece of office furniture I ever bought, and pointed to the grown-up person I wanted to be at age 18 in the first year of my undergraduate degree. I saved up for it over a few months before making the big purchase. My boyfriend and I carried it awkwardly from the shop along Maitland Rd, Mayfield, to our shared student house and installed it in a corner of our bedroom. This all came flooding back when we opened the drawers to remove the cabinet and the files from Introduction to Communication Studies, Media, Culture& Society, Journalism 1 etc were still there.

The corner now: (boxes of my book hold up the vision board) much more inspiring but still room for improvement.

It’s been nearly 20 years since I started that degree and, now that I’m embarking on postgraduate study, it seems the right time to say goodbye to the clutter I don’t need. In the place where the filing cabinet previously stood I can now see my vision board, but I’m thinking of moving that to another wall and adding a chair there instead. While I tend to meet clients at their office, a café or chat via Skype/the phone, I would still prefer to have somewhere for a visitor to sit if they were to come to the Patch. While it’s tempting to put a sofa or chaise lounge there, I’m sure it would become another dumping space for my stuff (or somewhere to ‘rest’), so I think one of these office chairs would be much better. I’m quite taken with the Rondo swivel chair actually!

The next step in this office re-organisation process is to sort out what I actually need on my desk and find new homes for the items that aren’t vital to have close by. Then the final task is to do something with the pile of magazines and papers I currently walk past on the way to my desk. Once all these pieces fit within my new office puzzle I think I will have created a truly inspiring and productive space to work and study.

This post was sponsored by Affordable Office Furniture, however all comments (and the trip down memory lane) are my own.