Desk Organization Ideas for an Office Desk
Pick from eighteen desk organization ideas, numbered and grouped by the mess they clear, from loose paper to cables. Many cost nothing; where a holder helps, we name the piece.
For one method from start to finish, read how to organize your desk, which sorts the desk into reach zones and gives every piece a place. This page is the pick-list for office desk organization: find your problem in the table, then go to the idea with that number.
Match the problem to an idea
| Problem on the desk | Idea | Piece that helps |
|---|---|---|
| No clear place to work | 1, 2 | Desk pad |
| Things put down “for now” stay for weeks | 3 | None needed |
| Paper lies in several piles | 4 | Single document tray |
| Unread and unfinished paper get mixed | 5 | Two-tier document tray |
| Sticky notes cover the monitor | 6 | Memo holder |
| Pens everywhere, half of them dry | 7 | Pen cup |
| Loose paper clips and pins | 8 | Paperclip holder |
| Business cards in loose stacks | 9 | Business card holder |
| The phone lies on top of the work | 10 | Phone stand |
| Cables cross the desk or drop behind it | 11 | None needed |
| The desk looks busy even when tidy | 12 | Matching pieces in one color |
| Cups and glasses collect | 13 | Coaster |
| The desk is too small | 14, 15, 16 | Two-job pieces or a compact set |
| It was tidy a month ago | 17, 18 | None needed |
Clear the surface
1. Empty the desk into a box
Put everything on the desk except the computer into a box on the floor. For one week, take a thing out only when you need it, and give it a place when you do. Whatever is still in the box on the last day goes in a drawer, on a shelf or out of the office.
2. Mark one working zone with a desk pad
A desk pad draws a border around the place where the work happens, and a border makes a rule possible: nothing is stored on the pad. Only the task in front of you lies on it. Ours measure 13.4 × 18.9 in (34 × 48 cm) or 15.0 × 22.8 in (38 × 58 cm); to choose, measure your desk as the desk pad size guide describes.
3. Keep one landing spot empty
Things arrive all day: a parcel, a visitor's folder, your keys, lunch. With no place to land, they settle wherever there is a gap, and they stay. Keep one spot empty on purpose, such as the corner nearest the door. Anything set down there is dealt with or carried away before you go home.
Give paper a path
4. Allow one pile, in one tray
Paper spreads because every flat surface will take a sheet. Make one container the only place where paper may lie flat: a single document tray. When it is full, sort it before you add to it. Folders for work in progress stand upright on a shelf, labels showing, and stay off the pile.
5. Split new paper and open work with two tiers
When paper both arrives and waits, one pile hides which sheets are unread and which are owed an answer. A two-tier document tray keeps them apart, provided each tier has one meaning. Our organizing guide gives the top tier to new paper and the lower tier to open work; see its in, to do, out paper flow.
6. Trade sticky notes for one note stack
Sticky notes can go anywhere, so before long they are everywhere. A memo holder keeps one stack of note paper in one place, beside the pens. By the end of the day, the top sheet is either done and thrown away or copied into your calendar. Paper is not included with our memo holders.
Tame the small things
7. Keep one pen cup and limit what goes in it
Test every pen on the desk and throw out the ones that skip. Keep the handful you reach for, plus scissors and a highlighter, upright in one pen cup, and move the spares to a drawer. When a pen will not go in without a push, something has to leave.
8. Give clips and pins one small container
Paper clips, binder clips and pins travel: into the pen cup, under the keyboard, across the pad. One small container next to the tray ends that, because clips are used where the paper is. The Pulsar, Vesta and Chester sets include a paperclip holder, and the business card holder in the Star sets has a paperclip compartment.
9. Keep only your own business cards on the desk
Keep your own cards in a business card holder that a visitor can reach. Cards you are given do not belong on the desk: save the contact to your phone, then file or recycle the card. If visitors sit across from you, how to set up a professional office desk shows where the holder should stand.
Cables and devices
10. Give each device a parking place
A phone, a tablet and headphones lying flat cover working space and get buried under paper. Park each one: the phone on a phone stand, placed where its charging cable already reaches; the headphones on a hook under the desk edge; the tablet upright beside the monitor.
11. Fix the cables where they leave the desk
Clip each charging cable to the back edge of the desk, so the loose end cannot fall behind it. Lift the power strip off the floor and fasten it under the desktop or to a leg. Then label each plug with what it powers.
Make it yours without clutter
12. Use one color for everything that stays out
When the tray, the pen cup and the card holder match, they read as one group, and anything that does not match shows up at once and is quick to clear: a stray mug, a borrowed stapler. For the lamp, the plant and the photo, see our office desk decor ideas.
13. Allow one cup, on one coaster
There is always room for one more cup unless something sets a limit. A coaster does: one drink on the desk at a time, on the coaster, away from paper. When a fresh cup arrives, the old one goes back to the kitchen. Some of our sets come with three coasters, which gives a visitor's drink a place too.
Desk organization ideas for a small desk
14. Go up before you go out
A small desk runs out of surface first, so use the space above it. A shelf over the desk takes reference books and spare paper. A monitor arm or riser frees the strip under the screen. A wall board holds the lists you check every morning.
15. Choose pieces that do two jobs
Each job you combine saves the footprint of one object. The Star business card holder in idea 8 is one example. The Elegance pen cup has a clock built in, and on Chester the clock is attached to the nameplate (clock batteries are not included). Each can be ordered alone, and the page on desk accessories by the piece has a table of pieces by model.
16. Keep the set small
On a small desk, count the objects before you add holders. A compact desk set has four to nine pieces, and every one of ours uses the 13.4 × 18.9 in (34 × 48 cm) desk pad. Each has a desk pad, a pen cup and a memo holder, and none has a document tray; the other pieces differ from set to set.
Keep it that way
17. One in, one out
A desk fills up one object at a time, and each one seemed reasonable on the day it arrived. Decide how many things stand on the surface and hold to that number: when something new comes to stay, something else leaves. Pens, mugs and ornaments are the things that multiply.
18. Photograph the desk when it is right
Once the desk is the way you want it, take a photo from your chair. On a set day each week, spend ten minutes putting the desk back to match the photo: empty the tray to the bottom, check the pen cup, clear the landing spot. For the daily version, our organizing guide has a five-minute end-of-day reset.
Three sets that cover several ideas
None of the ideas needs a matching set. If you would rather start from one, these three faux leather sets suit three different desks, and our guide to choosing a desk organizer set walks through the decision.
- A small desk that sees almost no paper: the Vega 4-Piece Desk Set ($125) is a desk pad, a pen cup, a memo holder and a phone stand, on the 13.4 × 18.9 in (34 × 48 cm) pad. It has no coaster and no nameplate.
- One pile of paper, clips and cards: the Pulsar 10-Piece Desk Set ($225) is a desk pad, a pen cup and a memo holder plus a single document tray, a paperclip holder, a business card holder, a coaster and a personalized nameplate base with two ballpoint pens, on the 15.0 × 22.8 in (38 × 58 cm) pad. It has no phone stand.
- Paper in and out on the smaller pad: the Vega 14-Piece Desk Set with Nameplate ($275) repeats the four kinds of piece in the Vega 4, on the same pad size, and adds a two-tier document tray, a calendar holder, a business card holder, a tissue holder, three coasters and a personalized nameplate base with two ballpoint pens. Calendar sheets are not included.
Where to start
Pick one row of the table and do that idea today; if none stands out, start with the box in idea 1. For a new desk, the list doubles as desk setup ideas: begin with the pad in idea 2 and add a holder only when a problem from the table appears.
To see every set and its pieces, browse all desk sets. Build Your Desk Set sells the same kinds of pieces one at a time, with no minimum.
