11 Tips to Declutter and Organize Your Desk

"A clean desk is a sign of a cluttered desk drawer." I chuckled when I saw this quote by Mark Twain, because I have been guilty of this and may still be at times.

A desk is easy to clutter without organized systems in place and if those systems are not actively implemented. You may be able to relate with the following:

- Piles of paper without true organization.

- Quotes from callers, written on post-it notes, lost underneath a pile of invoices.

- Post-it notes all over the computer monitor and a few that fell off the monitor that are now hiding behind the desk!

- Signed proofs mixed in with a pile of estimates.

Can you relate? Imagine how much time is wasted looking through piles and trying to find exactly what you are looking for.

You have heard the phrase, “Time is Money.” In business, how you spend your time truly does affect your revenue. A cluttered desk definitely causes a lot of wasted time that can be better spent on bringing in more business.

Time to Organize

Organizing is defined as "items being arranged according to logical rules or structure." When a workspace is organized, each item is defined as having a proper order or placement. The height of organization is when it takes no longer for a person to find one item than any other. If this all sounds a little abstract, it’s actually not.

How Does Organizing Help A Business Owner?

Organization is something that can help any business owner or manager, including sign business owners and managers.

Organization, in general, at any level, is an essential component of business success. A businessperson has to be organized in their bookkeeping, inventory, and advertising in order to generate a profit.

One often overlooked item of organization that business owners sometimes neglect is the organization of their desk.

The desk is the place where sign business owners draft important documents like estimates, proofs and invoices, network with clients, and form advertising campaigns.

If your desk is a mess, it might impede your thinking or create unnecessary stress and anxiety. One of the most important first steps that business owners can do is to declutter their desk before beginning anything.

11 Concrete Tips To Declutter and Organize Your Desk

These 4 organization tips will help you declutter your desk. If you don’t know where to start, this article is a helpful starting point. Most people have such cluttered work spaces because they’ve never been taught the tips for declutter.

1. Have a place for pocket stuff.
Your keys, smartphone and wallet should have a home. Many people place their pocket items on their desk, under their computer monitor. Instead, give them a home like a basket in the top drawer of your desk.

2. Digitize whatever you can.
There are scanners that are specially optimized to handle receipts, projects, designs, estimates, bills and even business cards.

3. Consider going paperless.
These days all types of businesses that you rely on regularly, like banks, utility companies and other service companies, and offer online statements and payment services. These are known to be safe and secure and can save your desk from piling up with mail that needs to be opened and filed.

4. Declutter pens, pencils and other tools.
It is common to see pens scattered over business desks. This distracts our mind when working on a project. If this is true for your desk, perhaps make it a practice to have only a pen or two on your desk and put extras in a drawer.

How shopVOX Can Help You Declutter Your Sign Business Desk

1. Go Paperless
   This is the dream of every tree, of course. But, imagine seeing a desk without papers all over and being done away with filing cabinets, shoe boxes and overstuffed desk drawers! Everything for your sign projects can be annotated into the shopVOX Sign Business Software including design notes, production notes etc. Create virtual work orders with all details needed for your projects.

2. Bye-Bye Dry Erase Boards
   ShopVOX Sign Management offers Electronic Job Boards which means no more updating dry erase boards and having scattered markers all over the desk.

3. Make Use of the shopVOX from Anywhere
   shopVOX works on any mobile device so any entry can be done right from the phone/tablet. No need to print forms first to complete before a quote happens, even if you are traveling to your client. This will save your desk from accumulating forms, as well as time.

4. Less Post-it Notes!
   No more quoting on post it notes! Quote in shopVOX. Also you can create all notes in shopVOX and completely eliminate post it notes.

5. Provide online proofing
   Instead of printing and faxing, offer online proofing to your clients. This means less piles of paper scattered on different desks.

6. Sales leads all in ONE location
   Create your sale leads in the shopVOX Business Software, not on post it notes nor a notebook that you have to flip through when you are ready to call back.

7. Throw out Missed Your Call books
   Input each missed call in the shopVOX system and shopVOX can alert the person the call is for.

These tips should help help you with the hard task of de-cluttering and organizing your desk to make you a more efficient businessperson for your sign business.

For more information about how shopVOX can help with your shop, sign up for a live webinar.

Also, feel free to leave us a comment below with more tips for organizing your desk and how shopVOX has helped you become more organized. We love reading your comments!