Small Desks - Some Tips
One of the many downsides to a small house is that, in general, you can’t fit a very big desk in a small house. I’ve experienced this over the last couple of months, with my father now living in a small rental townhouse, so I’ve decided that it’s time I compiled a list of things you can do to make your smaller-than-you’d-like workspace work for you.
1) Make good use of the surrounding wall space - Install some shelving units to store equipment, books, paper, folders, anything you can. You even try mounting your computers monitor on the wall, something which has proven to be an effective space-saving technique for others in the past.
2) If you’ve got any sort of electronics on your desk, be sure to invest in adequate cable management - I’ve found that one of the worst problems with a small desk was an overload of cable mess taking up too much of an already cramped workspace, and THAT is a problem you do not, repeat, do NOT want to find yourself having.
Cable ties, cable boxes, even some regular old plastic tubing can be effective cable managememt.
3) Be sure to clean up and “reboot” your workspace every night - Hell, if you can do it every time you need to start a new task, you’d be fine! Clutter from previous jobs is dismissable IF you’re using a big desk, but if you’re using a smaller desk in a smaller space, you’ll need to remove such clutter quickly if you want to make good use of what little space you have.
4) Make sure everything is the right size - Just because you already have a computer monitor, doesn’t mean it will work well with a newly acquired, smaller desk. The same goes for printers, books, folders, paper trays, everything else that will be on or near your desk; If it’s too big, change it for a smaller version; Any space you can possibly reclaim will need to be reclaimed.
I’ve been using a small desk for two months now, and I feel that if you follow these ‘instructions’ as I have, you’ll be able to work just fine with a limited workspace.
