Organizing Your Home: The Study/Computer Room

In this computer age in which we live, more homes are dedicating a room to the computer. It can also be known as the study. If this is the case with you, how is that room looking? Is it in need of organizing? If it has been sorely neglected, it’s time to do something about that! So, let’s roll up our sleeves and get to it!

Before starting, keep one thing in mind so the mess won’t overwhelm you and you decide to give up: slow and steady wins the race! It didn’t get this disorganized overnight and it will take some time to gain control over the mess. However, once you have accomplished this task, it will be much easier to keep it neat and clean in the future. Remember, even an elephant needs to be eaten ‘one bite at a time’!

Let’s begin by taking a look at your desktop. How does your desk look? Can you see the top? Are you convinced it even HAS a top? If not, let’s start here. Take one small area of your desk—to the right of your monitor, for starters. Sort through the paperwork you have—determine what can be filed (in folders and then a filing drawer), what can be thrown away, and what you need on your desk (bills that are due). Don’t short change yourself and be honest with what you can do without. The less you have on your desk distracting you, the better you’re going to feel. Remember—small steps here! Now work on the area to the left of your monitor. Leave space to be able to adjust the volume on your speakers and get to your printer.

This might be a great opportunity to get yourself a bulletin board and put it to use. It doesn’t have to be a fancy bulletin board with ribbons—a standard corkboard with pushpins will do nicely. If you have paperwork that you don’t want to file away (yet) or things that you need to keep in front of you for memory-jogging purposes, a bulletin board is a great addition. A bulletin board is a great place to ‘stick’ things that won’t be cluttering up your desk, but are still in easy reach when needed.

Now it’s time to take a good look at your bookshelves. Are they organized so you can find things? Let’s not go overboard and apply the Dewey Decimal system here! Just as long as you can easily find things, that’s what counts. My shelves are alphabetical, but that’s me. Are your shelves dusty? Don’t take all the books off the shelves to dust them—it’s rarely dusty under the books. Simply dust from the edges of the books to the edge of the shelf. Done!

Next thing on the list is to look down at your floor (no, not out of shame). How’s the floor look in this room? Can you walk and not kill yourself? If not, use the laundry-basket method we’ve already discussed in previous organizing articles and sort through what you’ve got, what you need, and what you don’t need. Once you can see the floor, run the vacuum. Again, don’t worry about the edges; just where you normally walk and roll your desk chair.

One final thing to do: dust the furniture in this room. Run your duster over all surfaces and pick up whatever particles may be lying on all the flat surfaces. You’d be shocked how quickly dust builds up where your computer is involved. You may even take a look at how the fans are in your CPU. If they are gathering dust, it would be a good time to give your CPU a blowing out party. You can buy a can of ‘air’ at the local computer store to do this task.

Alright! Another room in your home completely organized!