How to organize your cupboards and workstation

A messy workstation can cost you time and productivity searching for misplaced items. These tips will help you stay organized and efficient at home and at work.

The best advice for your cupboards? Use them only for everyday items. Don't pack them with stuff that can go into storage.

Make the most of your kitchen corner cupboard by:

• Fitting carousel shelving to hold pots and pans.
• Nesting pots and pans together also saves space.

To optimize cupboard space for storing cans, dried goods and so on:

• Install cheap, freestanding shelving or display steps.
• Where you have similar perishable items, put those with the longest shelf life to the back.
• When storing toxic cleaning products under the sink, secure the doors if you have young children.

Tackle an overflowing clothes closet:

• Remove all the clothes and divide into three piles: yes, maybe and discard — the clothes that fit and are regularly worn, those that you might wear occasionally, and the has-beens for the charity shop or recycle bin.
• This exercise can bring to light some forgotten garments, to be promoted from the "maybe" pile to "'yes."

Keep linen cupboards tidy, with bed linen in sets or with sheets of similar size all together:

• Sort towels into colours and sizes and lay them with the folded side to the fore.
• Always rotate clean sheets and towels; put the newly laundered ones to the bottom of the pile and take clean ones from the top.

A day spent organizing your workspace and decluttering your space will pay dividends in helping to maximize your efficiency. Remember: Tidy desk, tidy mind!

On your desk:

• You should have only the things you need for the task in hand.
• If there are books, letters and printouts that you have finished with, or don't intend to use today, put them somewhere else.

Have a shoebox, tray or file to keep pending correspondence.

• Move it to a shelf. That way, the chaos is at least contained.

Shun desk toys and too many photos.

• They will clutter your mind as much as your desk.

If possible, don't have your printer on your desk.

• It takes up far too much useful space.

• Use your desk drawers wisely: one for pens, another for paper stationery, another still for personal items, phone chargers and the like.

• Be organized with filing: creating separate hanging files in drawers for current projects, important paperwork, recently completed jobs and other things that you may need to access at short notice.

• Move old paperwork into archive boxes: keep it there until you can dispose of it.

• Take care where you position your computer. Don't have your monitor where you are looking into a bright light behind it or where glare will dazzle off the screen.

• Make sure that your chair is supportive. Also check that you're sitting at the right height in relation to the desk.