Are you a stationery addict?

Shhh! You’re a stationery addict, right?

If I had a pound for every time I met with a Client who needed help to clear their cluttered workspaces, who admitted to having a penchant for stationery, I’d be a very rich person by now!!

Who doesn’t love a bit of stationery shopping on the high street?   With the rows of organised books, pens, colours, rulers and so on, it would be easy to fill as basket with one of everything ‘just in case’.

Buying new stationery is like starting things over again with yourself.

The clean sheets of a new notebook.  Sharpness of a new pencil.  Crispness of a pack of brand new post-it notes.

No history of unfinished tasks, shame of a missed page or embarrassment of a leaky pen.  Just perfectly new, clean, pages waiting to be filled with ideas, thoughts, must-dos, might-dos, should-dos, never-will-dos, wish-I had-dones…

What is National Stationery Week?

It amused me to find out that there’s such a thing as National Stationery Week happening from 25 April – 1 May 2016 – celebrating all things related to the written word! Some promotional fun and games from producers of these lovely things, consequently they’re encouraging you (subliminally of course!) to go and treat yourself to another new notebook or pen.

Whilst I have absolutely no problem with that whatsoever, allow me to ask you to do a little stock-take of what you already own before you create desk clutter and go to splash the cash on that ‘must-have’ from Paperchase!

How to avoid that stationery stock-up!

Here’s a quick suggestion for before you hit the shops;

• Empty out the contents of your pen pots/desk drawer/kitchen ‘stuff’ drawer – wherever you store your stationery.
• Collect everything together in ‘like-with-like’ piles
• Discard anything broken or damaged into the bin
• Purge what you have. Do you really need two dozen biros in your pen pot?  Pass what’s no-longer-required on to someone else
• Note what you need to replenish and shop for that only.
• Only put back into your usual places the items you use regularly.  Store everything else out of the way.

I’ll leave you now to get re-acquainted with your pens.

And if your workspace needs more than a quick pen and paper re-shuffle, do get in touch to see how I could help you be more productive in your day to day activity.