Supply Closet Restocking – How to Stay Organized at Work

What better way to begin the New Year than to organize all the things in your life that give you a little bit of stress. This can be your car, certain rooms in your home, your desk at work. Today, we are going to talk about how to restock and organize that messy supply closet at the office. 

A lot of offices have a closet or space dedicated to their office supplies. Being used by multiple people and personalities, things can get misplaced or thrown out of order very quickly. It can become hard to physically see what’s there and how much of it there is. Here are a few ways to restock and organize your supply closet so everything is easily accessible. 

Clean, Clean, Clean

Before you begin the restocking process, the closet must be cleaned out and organized for you to assess your office supply needs properly. 

To do this:

1. Empty the entire closet, or take everything off of the shelves for a clean slate
2. Organize all of the contents of the closet into separate piles and categories (break room, janitorial, desk, bathroom, etc.)
3. Discard trash and items you no longer need/use
4. Use see-through bins or baskets. They are ideal when organizing office supplies so you don’t have to search through a ton of boxes just to find something as small as paper clips
5. Another efficient way to organize small things like pens, pencils, paper clips, staplers, etc. is an over the door organizer with pockets
6. If you want to get fancy, bust out the label maker and go to town adding labels to the bins/baskets
7. Reorganize everything back on the shelf, according to category and place like items by each other. For example, writing utensils should all be placed in one area and maybe consider placing them next to things like notepads or printer paper

Take Stock

The next thing after you clean out and organize the supplies that are already in the closet is to finally start taking into consideration how much you have/how much more you need of each product—

1. 1. Begin by making a list of all the things your office utilizes daily—from the bathroom to the break room to desk supplies. If you have separate areas for each room/category—check all areas
   2. Look at the things that are already in these areas and add them onto the list
   3. Once you have the list, go through and write the number of each item that should be in the office
   4. Next, go through and count the number of each item that is already in the supply closet 
   5. Order the items needed to get your closet back up to speed

Keep up with the Supply Closet Demands

Tackling the task of handling the supply closet will feel great, after all, it’s a big accomplishment in the busy work world that not many take the time to achieve. It’s important to explain to your employees that they need to keep this area clean and it should be simple now that everything is easily accessible. 

Here’s how to keep things up:

1. Implement a system for how you are going to continue replenishing items when needed.
2. Keep a master list or excel spreadsheet to always refer back to when restocking
3. Put a clipboard up in the closet and employees can write down what is running low each week
4. Make sure you are ordering supplies ahead of time so there is never a shortage

Keeping things tidy around the workplace is key to increasing productivity. Being more organized is a common resolution that many people strive to accomplish, so why not start somewhere as simple as the supply closet?