Our team just received our first Turnstone Buoy and are so excited about it that we have to share the news! This seat is great for the people that don’t like sitting still for too long or tend to distract themselves easily. This seat will make your office tasks more enjoyable as you spin and wobble on the Buoy.

Some of the reasons we love the buoy:

• Height Adjustment - Using a lever you can easily adjust the seat to the height that fits you.
• Mobility - The buoy is light enough to move it around with you and has a handle to carry it.
• Customizable - You can make the buoy your own by choosing the color of the cap, main body, and base. We decided on a teal, white and brown buoy to match our company colors!
• Saves Space - This seat takes up less space and doesn’t roll around like an exercise ball does. It also looks better in an office than an exercise ball.

Think the Buoy is something you’d enjoy in your office? Check out their website and order one today! 

Need help selecting organizing products for your office? There are so many products on the market to choose from, but where do you start? Here is a quick list of 4 of our favorites and why we like them:

1) Product: iStand

Why We Like It: Frankly we’ve been kind of surprised how much we’ve used the iStand at our desk. We especially like to use it when we use the TimeTimer app. The iStand props your phone up so you can see at a glance how much time is left when you’re giving a presentation, in a meeting, or completing a task.

2) Product: Magazine Pockets

Why We Like It: These make great use of the vertical space in your cubicle, small office, or home office. You can hang the pockets on the wall to serve as your in and out boxes. They also serve as a magnetic board to post important notes, mini calendars, or hang keys.

3) Product: Cordies

Why We Like It: How many times have you had to crawl under your desk to fetch a stray cord? Cordies help keep cords manageable and within easy reach. They are especially good for phone charges, USB cables, and laptop chargers.

4) Product: Mesh File Crate Solutions

Why We Like It: These crates fit comfortably under your desk or table, so you can tuck them out of the way when they aren’t in use. This product is also great because you can stack multiple bins on top of each other, put them on a dolly, and wheel them wherever you want.

Sign up for our free Organize Small Spaces Webinar on July 25th for more tips!

At Innovatively Organized, we are big proponents of using two monitors to help increase productivity at work.  We have two monitors set up in our office so we can view and work on multiple documents at once.  If you are wondering whether you could benefit from using multiple monitors, check out our previous blog post, “Do Multiple Computer Monitors Make You More Productive?”

But if you already have multiple monitors, we’re excited to share a few more ways you can customize your monitor set-up!  Here are two ways you can use your double computer monitors to boost your efficiency while working:

Switch the screen orientation

As pictured above, you can change one of your monitors into a vertical position.  This technique is most frequently used by accounting and legal firms because it helps to view spreadsheets in the portrait view.  If you usually work with long spreadsheets or legal documents, you might consider changing the orientation of one of your screens to help you view more at once.

Duplicate your screens

This option is great for meetings with a client or team member—you can face one of your screens towards your audience while the other one remains facing you.  This way, you can display the same exact screen without everyone huddling over one monitor to view it.

How do you use your multiple monitors?  Share with us in the comments below!

Have you been searching for functional office supplies that are still fun?  We recently discovered an interesting new site, Quirky, that sells cool gadget accessories, helpful organization products, and well, quirky inventions!

Tangled…

Our team was setting up a new desk in our office and we had cords all over the place—we weren’t tripping on them, but they certainly didn’t look organized and neat.  We thought our cord chaos would make the perfect opportunity to test Quirky out, so we ordered the Plug Hub.  It was really easy to install and helped contain the cable mess, concealing all those tangles.

Quirky!

After installing, we do have one more tip - get some additional Velcro ties to tame cords that are closer to the top of your desk.  We found that cords near the ground were tidy, but closer to our computer and monitor still needed some help.

An added bonus about Quirky (besides our newly untangled desk space!) is that you can invent the next new fun product!  Quirky allows you to submit your invention idea, so if you have a solution for an everyday product, you can see it come to life.

Check out their organizing gadgets and let us know which ones you try!

Happy Earth Day! In honor of all things green, we’ve put together a list of ideas to help you reduce paper, reuse everyday items, and reorganize with sustainable organizing products.

1. Reduce Paper

ScanSnap S1300 - This is one of our all-time favorite products to help you achieve your goal of becoming as paperless as possible. This scanner is portable, easy to use, and maintains great quality. Learn more here.

Virtual Notebooks - Using virtual notebooks is a great way to reduce the amount of paper you use for notetaking or jotting quick to-do lists.  We like Evernote and Microsoft’s OneNote as great options to consider.  They are a great way to keep all of your notes paperless and organized.  You can even share your notes with other people!  For more information on virtual notebooks, download our virtual notebooks webinar.

2. Reuse Everyday Items

We are thrilled with JoAnn’s recently organized office space.  What began as an overwhelmed, cluttered, and inefficient room is now a functional and organized office.  JoAnn is finally able to work productively in her space, which maintains its organizational system with little effort required.

Our Sponsors

With the close of our second Messiest Desk Contest, we would like to thank everyone that made it possible.  A huge thank you to all of our wonderful sponsors:

• Turnstone
• Smead
• Leo Santiago Photography
• Getting Organized Magazine
• Scan-Doc
• GeekPeek.tv

The Messy Desk Transformation

Thank you as well to everyone that submitted a nomination and voted in January!  In case you missed our journey organizing JoAnn’s space, here was our process and big reveal:

• Picking Containers that Work for Your Space
• Scanning Physical Binders into Electronic Files
• Creating a File System that is Easy to Use and Maintain
• The Big Reveal!

Photo courtesy of Leo Santiago Photography

The Messiest Desk Contest transformation is complete!

It all started with JoAnn’s messy desk. As a busy professional juggling multiple projects, her office had become more of a storage unit than a functional workspace. In fact, she often attempted to use her guest bed as a desk because she couldn’t see the top of her desk. She needed a Productivity Intervention!

For several weeks, our team worked with JoAnn to transform her office into a productive space where she can now efficiently manage the inflow of paperwork and projects that come her way.

View the after photos here.

In January, we announced the winner of our second Messiest Desk Contest and the big reveal is right around the corner!  JoAnn is an educator with an overcrowded office and extremely busy schedule. She expressed her desire for a functional office that would allow her to be more productive in her roles and responsibilities. In order to make her office more functional, one of the items we needed to address was storage.

We began working with JoAnn in February to assess her space, identify her challenges and goals, learn how she would prefer to work in her space, and take steps towards creating an efficient office.  With her office currently being utilized more for storage, she had been using her guest bed as a makeshift desk!

JoAnn’s office was cluttered with piles of papers, boxes of books, and a wide variety of office supplies.  She needed a storage system that gave everything a proper “home” within her office.  We started by sorting and purging JoAnn’s paper and office supplies, then designated where everything should be stored based on how often JoAnn needed access to them.  She already had some great containers that we were able to reuse, but there were some items that needed better storage solutions. We turned to Turnstone and found products with the perfect mix of functionality and aesthetics that fit her needs and space.

Often times, people choose containers before they start their organizing project.  Instead, begin by sorting and purging.  Then take into account what is actually left and measure the areas where your containers will live to ensure you are maximizing your available space.

Based on the needs of JoAnn’s space and supplies, we installed the following products from Turnstone into her new office:

• For storing her office supplies: Bankers Boxes
• For her in and out boxes: SOTO Letter Boxes
• For storing desk supplies: SOTO Pile Boxes
• For storing her active projects: SOTO File Boxes

Be sure to follow our blog for the next steps we took in JoAnn’s office transformation, as well as the final reveal of her new functional office!

Photo courtesy of Leo V. Santiago.

Special thanks to Turnstone for contributing modern storage bins.

At Innovatively Organized, we are big fans of label makers.  One of the keys to staying productive at work is not just organizing your space, but maintaining your space.

Once all of your file folders, incoming documents, supplies, and mail have a “home” in your office, make it official with a label.  Adding consistent labels to your workspace allows you to save time retrieving documents and maintain organization. It also helps others find (and return) items quickly and easily.

Without further ado…here is our favorite label maker, the Brother PT1290 Home and Office Labeler (don’t forget the label maker tape).  Happy labeling!

Don’t worry…we didn’t forget about the Messiest Desk Contest! Our team has been working hard sorting through piles of paper, sticky notes, books, office supplies and did we mention sticky notes?

The big reveal is coming soon, but we wanted to give you a sneak peek of what we found in JoAnn’s office. The infographic below shows how many bankers boxes worth of “stuff” (we try to avoid that word) we filled. Stay tuned as we continue to update the infographic and reveal the after photos.

*To enlarge the graphic, right click on the image and select “Open Image in New Tab.” Then you can zoom in and out according to your preferences.