How to keep your working from home space organised: The products you need, from storage to stationary
Keep your desk free from clutter with everything from bulletin boards to paperclips
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Your support makes all the difference.If you’ve spent the past five months slowly getting used to working from home, you’ve probably got into a good routine adapting to the "new normal".
As there’s no sign of returning to the office en masse any time soon, it’s the perfect opportunity to dedicate a permanent space in your home to your new office space.
If like us, you finally committed to buying a new desk or maybe just a laptop stand for the dining room table, chances are, as all the days blend into one, stuff tends to pile up.
Whether its books, documents, stationery or otherwise essential equipment, keeping your space tidy can be helpful in keeping you productive.
It also means fewer frantic panics seconds before a zoom call where you need that piece of paper or a pen to hand to jot down something important.
Some of these little nifty products are not always the most exciting of purchases, but they often are the most helpful.
While we’ve got you covered with space-saving folding desks, these are our favourite organisational must-haves to keep all your work essentials easy to find at all times.
You can trust our independent round-ups. We may earn commission from some of the retailers, but we never allow this to influence selections, which are formed from real-world testing and expert advice. This revenue helps us to fund journalism across The Independent.
Storage solutions
Joanna Thornhill, interior stylist and author of My bedroom is an office: & other interior design dilemmas recommended strategically placing items that will separate work from pleasure in our guide to revamping your working from home space.
“Place an empty basket close by that you can simply offload everything into at the end of your working day,“ she says.
We’d recommend this Adenta medium pink, orange and black floor storage basket (The Basket Room, £105), as it's big enough to fit a laptop, keyboard and important documents.
If you want a more permanent solution to an ever-growing stack of stuff, the skinny locker in mustard (Mustard Made, £229) is a vibrant, fun and quirky option.
Designed by sisters Becca and Jess, it comes flat packed so will get through your front door easily, and has a hanging rail, four adjustable shelves, two hooks, a cable hole and safety wall screw holes.
If you’re limited on floor space, utilise your walls with this pin it up extra-large notice board (Great Little Trading Com £55).
With a bulletin board for to-do lists and important dates and a slim tray at the bottom, it’s ideal for keeping your things neat and tidy.
Should you like to be plugged into a podcast or music while you work, or you live in a communal place and don’t want to disturb your flatmates while on a zoom meeting, you may have your headphones on for most of the workday.
Avoid them taking up desk space with this slimline Yamazaki beautes headphone stand (John Lewis & Partners, £18).
It’ll keep them from being accidentally knocked onto the floor or mistakenly sat on too.
Stationery
Athina Bluff, designer at online interiors service, Topology Interiors, suggested to The Independent to add red accessories to your desk: “Red is the first colour the naked human eye sees, so it's very stimulating and a pop of it will wake up the brain and boost energy and productivity.“
We love this Pantone pencil cup (Dot Maison, £10.39), for storing all your stationery while adding colour and style.
If you’re the owner of a set of Ikea drawers and let’s face it who isn’t, picking up a cheap insert can make finding what you need much easier.
This malaren box set of 7 (Ikea, £5) is an inexpensive way to separate your charging cables from your highlighting pens.
They’ll restore order to jam-packed drawers and if you have some leftover, you can use them in kitchen or bathroom drawers too.
While anyone working from a computer or laptop has access to digital note-taking, sometimes you just can’t beat a pen and paper.
Keep everything in line and in one place with this garner terracotta magazine file desktop storage (Habitat, £8).
Adding a pop of colour to your desk, you can use it for CVs if you're looking for work or tax forms if you're self-employed.
Don’t let your paperwork get on top of you by keeping a handy set of these mix and match green paperclips (Paperchase, £2.50) to hand.
Brightly coloured so you’ll never lose them, they're also available in rose gold and pink.