Hi, everyone.
I'm Alejandra from Alejandra.tv, and in this video, I'm going to share with you what my
temporary office space looks like, how it's set up and how you can do the same thing quick
and easy and set up a functional office.
But first, if this is your first time watching any of my videos and you're just beginning
your journey to getting more organized, there's a link below to help you get started for free.
Alright, so I'm here in this wonderful corner.
I've been working here for a couple of months and I'll probably be here for a couple more
months.
We are in transition between two homes, and yeah, so this is a temporary office.
I'm going to go around and explain everything I'm doing.
It's not so beautiful.
The space we're in is so beautiful and so inspiring, but my office here is not so beautiful.
There's like a cardboard box over here.
You're not going to see this in a magazine anywhere.
You're not going to see it on Pinterest, but it works.
It's functional and I'm productive and I get things done, which is the higher goal when
you're talking about setting up an office space.
While it's great to have an office or a workplace or a workspace where you feel inspired and
the things around you just inspire you, that's really great.
But what's even better is being able to bring your own inspiration to whatever workspace
you're working on.
That's even better because then it doesn't matter what your office looks like if you
can tap into your own inspiration, which we all have the capacity to do.
Alright, so let's start over here and I'll go around and show you what the systems look
like.
Alright, so right here is this lovely desk.
This was my desk from high school that my parents had in their basement.
They've had it there for like 15 years, ever since I left high school.
It's working great.
I like to keep the desktop nice and clear so I can focus, I don't have distractions
on whatever I'm working on.
Now, during the day, there's papers out because I'm working and I have things in front of
me and stuff, but at the end of the day, if you can get into the habit of putting your
papers away, maybe you just stack them nicely on the desk, but put them away so clutter
just doesn't accumulate on your desktop.
Then that has the capability of stealing you away from whatever you're working on.
Alright, so there's the laptop, my hard drive, my mouse, a coaster, and then in these two
drawers right here, I have my office supplies that use frequently: daily, weekly, and so
forth.
There's scissors, sticky notes, a little duster for the keyboard and stuff.
That's nice and fun.
There's paper clips or binder clips, rubber bands and stuff.
Then in the other drawer over here, just move this, the other drawer has all of my writing
instruments, so pens, markers, highlighters, and stuff right there, and all of the organizers
are puttied down inside the drawer so they're not going to shift around.
When you open or close the drawer, they're not going to move around.
They're stuck into place.
Alright, and any time you have a big drawer or you have a big space, what's going to help
you stay organized is break it down into sections or compartments so you can store different
categories of things, if you're not storing a lot of big things.
It's good for small things.
Alright, so that's the desk.
Then there's a trash can under the desk that's within reach of where I'm sitting.
Right in front of the desk, I just have Post-It Notes of just reminders that I need if I find
that I'm forgetting something, I'll write it on a sticky note and then put it in front
of me.
Then once I don't need that sticky note anymore, I'll just get rid of it and recycle it.
A lot of times what I do, if I start to feel overwhelmed by something, maybe there's a
lot going on or I'm juggling a lot of tasks and projects, one of the things that I do
is I'll take a sticky note and I'll write down the top three things that are my priority
for that given day or week or month or whatever it is.
I'll just write down either the task or the project and I'll just keep it in front of
me right here.
I'll just write, "Top three priorities," and then write them down.
I find that really helps me focus and stay focused on what my priorities are for that
day and that week and stuff.
Alright.
Over here, there's a printer and it's on a dish cloth, so it doesn't scratch this nice
wood surface.
What you can do is you can put felt pads underneath anything that may scratch some kind of surface.
There is a cork board for other important things or cards or any information that I
want to see and keep near my workspace.
Because we're renting this space, I can't hang the board, so it's just leaning against
the wall right now.
If you're renting a space, just do what you can.
Remind yourself that you're in a temporary situation and it's not permanent.
I keep telling myself, because I feel like this is not the ideal setup, but it's still
working.
I remind myself that it's temporary.
In the next phase of life, I'll be able to hang something on the wall and have it just
the way I like it.
Remembering it's temporary always helps.
Over here is my project sorter.
For any project that I'm working on, there's normally paper involved.
So what I like to do is use these poly envelopes that are so great for documents.
They're great because they have sides, unlike a file folder that doesn't have sides, and
they have this nice zipper at the top that just opens and closes so nicely.
It's made of some kind of plastic that is going to resist the water, so if you take
it in the car or on the train, wherever you're going, water's not going to get inside if
it's raining and it works well when you're in transportation or when you're traveling.
Alright, so those hang out over there.
Then also, because I don't have my label maker right now, I just took a sticky note or a
note card.
I wrote the category and then I taped it on with packing tape just like that, and that
works well.
And I managed to find this inclined file sorter.
All of my organizing bins are in storage right now and I met this lovely guy named Rick,
who is downsizing his entire house, and he was getting rid of all of these organizing
products, so one day he came and brought me all this stuff and I'm so grateful for him
because I'm still using a lot of the stuff he gave me.
This is one of the things.
Then right here is my temporary mail center.
Any time I check the mail, the first thing I do is I get rid of anything that is junk
mail recycling.
That stuff does not even come upstairs into my office.
It goes immediately into the recycling bin.
Anything that's actionable or needs to be shredded will come up to my office if it's
actionable, meaning I have to pay a bill, I have to call someone, I have to ask someone
something, I have to cancel something, it goes right here into this small mail sorter
that stays right here.
And I have my checkbook and stamps right there for paying bills as well.
What you can do is, if you have a bill that needs to be paid, go ahead and on the outside
of the envelope, write down the due date a few days in advance of the due date to give
you a reminder that that's when the bill is due.
Every day when I'm sitting up here, I just glance over to the bill center and just see
if there's any bills to be paid.
Over here is a binder.
This is a binder that has all of my most important coaching documents and notes and stuff.
If you are familiar with my videos, you know that I always use the Better Binders by Staples.
They are great binders, except the spine is not flat.
This is a nice, flat spine, which allows me to open the binder and completely go like
that with the cover, so I can just keep this on my desk just like this and just flip through
the pages nice and easily, just like that.
This one is from Staples as well, but it's not the Better Binder.
This is great if you're looking for a reference binder to always keep out.
Right here is all of my office supplies that are not daily, so they're weekly or monthly
or something.
It's also the bigger things: tape, stapler, envelopes.
There's another poly envelope for receipts for work, so this is the same as these folders,
except it's a smaller size.
Then there's some chargers and stuff inside of a reusable container, just like that, since
I don't have all of my bins.
That just hangs out right here.
Alright.
Right here, I have a shred box.
It's literally a box that says 'shred' on it.
Any time I have a document that needs to be shredded, I go ahead and I throw it in that
box.
Then next time I have access to a shredder, like I go to my family's house because I don't
have my shredder right now, I'll bring the box and shred the stuff.
If you have a pile of stuff that needs to be shredded, a great thing you can do is look
for a community shred event in your town, place of residence.
Find one.
Get it on the calendar so you have that accountability leading up to the event to go through and
sort out all your documents that require shredding.
Alright.
Any papers to be filed go inside this box right here.
There's no order to it.
If I need to save a paper, I just put it in the papers to file box, and then I'll batch
file every month or whenever the thing gets filled.
Right now, it's completely filled, but I don't have my filing cabinet, so I can't file the
stuff.
That's there.
The scanner is over here for scanning documents.
There's random wrapping paper right there that I've accumulated in the past year while
we've been in this transition.
Also, over here one thing I forgot to mention was I have these five wonderful poly envelopes
for my documents.
As you can see, one of them does not match the other four.
One of them is black.
The other four are aqua.
I know some of you will resonate will this.
That might bother you.
You might think, "Oh, I really need to change out the black one for an aqua one so they
all match."
If you stop and you catch yourself and you say, "Wait a minute.
What am I focused on right now?"
You might see that, "Wait.
I'm either focused on what's wrong with the system or I'm focused on what's right with
the system."
When you focus on what's going wrong, you're not appreciating what's great about the system,
so stopping and catching yourself and seeing what you're focusing on can bring a lot freedom
and a lot of peace to you, if you feel like it's automatic for you just to realize that
one doesn't match.
Anyways, that's my workspace.
It was quick and easy to set up.
It's functional.
It works.
I'm productive, and that's what matters.
I hope you enjoyed this video.
If you're organizing your office, go start doing 20 minutes in there.
Start by decluttering.
That's the first thing to do when you're organizing a workspace.
Declutter.
Start there.
See what kind of progress you make and keep moving forward no matter how slowly you go.
If you need more support, you can check out my website, Alejandra.tv, for more tools and
training on living a more organized life.
Thanks for watching and I'll see you soon.
Bye, bye.