Do Something! Organizing Your Law (or Home) Office

I consider myself to be fairly organized, but sometimes things just get away from me. The end of 2011 was a bit hectic which made things even worse, but now we've started a new year, and one of my goals for 2012 is to get more organized.

I have a supply closet in my office that houses reference materials, marketing folders, handouts, technical equipment, client gifts and a host of other odds and ends. It didn't have good shelving, and I was making do with a storage unit stuck into the closet, but I finally couldn't take it any more.

Before organizing

Below are the 'before' shots of the office closet - maybe you'll see why it stressed me out.

Before - everything's jumbled; these shelves just aren't working for me

Left side of the closet before - I can barely get those drawers open to get anything out

Right side of the closet before - I have to move everything to get anything

I installed some built in shelves and used some additional freestanding ones, and now the closet functions much more like it should - everything is easily accessible, I know where to find what I need, and I don't get anxious every time I open the door.

After organizing

Much more organized!

Right side of the closet after

Now everything is actually accessible

In addition to the shelves which are attached to the back wall of the closet (but are adjustable so I can customize the configuration as things change), I used a tall silver shelving unit which is small enough to fit in the space and makes good use of the height there, while still giving me access to the supplies I need without stacking them on top of one another. I also got a shorter, wider unit to accommodate the boxes of old files.

I hung some of my plaques in the empty space in the closet, rather than hanging them all on my office wall. This frees up wall space in my office itself, and since no one sees them but me anyway, (I travel to my clients or work with them virtually) putting them where I see them when I access supplies is a good reminder that the work I do is actually helping people.

Getting my office organized helps me to work more efficiently and effectively, because I’m not wasting time looking for things or moving them around to gain access to what I need; I can focus on working for my clients.

It's not often that I let people take a peek into my closet, but I hope it helps!

Do you have an organizing project that you want to tackle or that you just completed? Share your stories in the comments below - and keep an eye out for my next post with some times to help make your organizing project just a little bit easier.