Three years ago, my wife and I were going through a “simplify our lives” phase and decided to move from our one-hundred year old 3,000 square-foot house to a new(ish) 1,600 square-foot townhouse.[1]
When you make a move like that, you quickly learn to maximize space as much as possible. Since making the move, I’ve always been interested in how others deal with small spaces.[2]
To that end, this forum thread on Unclutterer caught my attention. It is all about being moved from an office to a small cubicle. Similar to our house move, having to move to a smaller workspace can be quite a disruption, especially when it has to be done in a hurry.
There are a number of great tips in the thread, but I like this one from herisff:
Cut down the office supplies in your area, and only keep the records you must in your cubicle. I’m a big believer in using a space for awhile before purchasing organizers, so I suggest making do for a few days with what you have.
Any time you are looking to make a large change, I find that it can help to shape your workflow to how you actually do things, rather than trying to force yourself to do something that doesn’t fit.
Sort of like the (possibly apocryphal) stories of universities adding sidewalks after they see where students walk.
Have you ever had to go through a space downsizing? How did it go?
(Photo by ajleon)