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How Can I Make More Of My Cubicle?
hv writes "I reside in a 10' x 10' space better than 12 hours a day... as do a lot of you. How do you make the most of the space? I'm looking for creative ways to add storage and unclutter the stacks of lab notebooks, USB peripherals and the O'Reilly Zoo that also inhabits my space."
-sk
Think vertical. I have cabinets, shelves and racks almost to the ceiling. Just make sure you keep the extra monitors on the bottom, not the top :P Also, bookshelves over your monitor, (not too close though) and on the sides are nice for getting to your reference quickly. I have about every piece of office equipment from steelcase and love them.
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Oh bother.
Mass-produced posters ("Hang in there!"), to me, are tacky. If you're living in a place eight to twelve hours a day, get something better, and more personal.
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn. Or a juggernaut.
I cleared everything off the desk, lay this piece of plastic down, used a tad of scotch tape on the corners to hold it in place, and slipped some papers under it. Pages I need to refer to frequently that used to be stacked on the desk now sit under the plastic where I can see them, but don't have to sacrifice space for them.
The most useful thing, however, has been sliding a piece of blank copier paper under the plastic. Now I can use dry-erase markers to make lists, diagrams, any temporary lists or notes (or doodles) I want right on the plastic with the white paper background. A napkin wipes it clean and it's always in easy view.
At home my wife got these little mini self-standing shelves at Home Depot which she put in some of our cabinets. Makes a lot more efficient use of empty space when you have a lot of small objects.
My $.02. Keep the change.
Coach
Perhaps the world's greatest tragedy is that ignorance is not impotence.
You're stuck. Can't fit much in a 10x10 2 dimensional space. Now if there were some height then you could: 1) Build a loft. A cube with a attic... 2) My cube space often has "dead" space at the very back underneath the desk. Assuming the space is not already occupied with system parts you could place selves there. 3) If multiple systems and monitors, get a Multi-PC contoller that switches the monitor/keyboard/mouse to your different systems. 4) Throw out the manuals you have looked at in five years. Particularly if there is an online version available. Serious do you really still use RUNOFF? 5) Sell trade those peices parts. That RP05 for the PDP11 looks great, but it take up a lot of space. 6) Replace hard copy manuals with online version if you use them less than once per week. How often do you really code your Postscript documents by hand? 7) All those little teepee keypad guides you look at once a year? Scan them, store the image in a well named place and pitch the hardcopy. 8) Do you really need 5 4 ft. stacks of 3.5" diskettes in salvaged from old software? Not to mention 5.25", 7", 9", etc. etc. etc. 9) Iris makes great filing drawers that roll under most desk tops. They come in different drawer configurations. 10) "Borrow" the extra shelf from the un occupied cube down the aisle. 11) While you're at it, those selves often fit on the wall on the outside of the cube. 4-7 of them can hold a lot of notebooks. ;)
12) Convince your building coordinator that your team needs an MT cube for storage then forget to tell the rest of your team about it.
13) Convince your neighbor that that dusty dot matrix printer you're storing would be great attached to HIS/HER PC and served to the network.
14) Request to work from home. This works particularly well if the eigtheen-year-old with a 12x16 bedroom has just gone to college. Remember though, most work-from-home plans don't include adding extra electrical circuits for the four systems or more you take home with you.
Here are a few things that have worked well for me. YMMV, of course :)
Get the power strips off of the floor. Currently I have mine attached to the cubicle desk supports with cable ties. Bolting them to the underside of the desk works well too. The same (naturally) applies to your personal network [hub|switch].
Cable ties are your friends. It's amazing how much better things look when the rats nest is sorted out and tied up nicely out of the way. Velcro strips or wire twist ties (the kind that come with plastic garbage bags) work well too, when you need something less permanent.
See if you can't get a nice KVM switch. Getting rid of the extra two or three monitors, keyboards and mice makes a huge difference :)
My current switchbox only does KV, so I still have three mice on my desktop, but still...
Bookshelves are a nice addition to any cubicle. The little 3- or 4-foot ones from Shopko (or WalMart or Target, if you prefer) work well and don't cost much. Milk crates or file crates can be helpful, too, if you use them right.
A couple of hooks on the wall for headphones and such like things do wonders, too.
YMMV, but I find it useful (and better for my poor aching back) to set part of my work surface about 4 feet high, and stand up while I work. With the typical three-section L-shaped cubicle desk, I generally put the corner and one long section up high, and leave the other one at the usual height with all of the drawers underneath it. This has the side effect of giving me lots of space under the desk for my extra computers, etc., and could theoretically do away with my chair altogether. (In practice I keep the chair, but most of the time it's under the desk in the corner of the cube, where it's out of the way.)
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
Get an LCD Display, if you haven't got one already. Saves a ton of room. Better yet, get one mounted on a hinged suspension arm. Another idea: Arrange to telecommute once or twice a week.
Don't laugh. The popular design company, Ideo, does just that in one of their offices. In fact, if you pick up the book about Ideo's innovative practices, The Art of Innovation, you'll read pulleys described as a technique for increasing office space and creating office decor. A photo of this technique exists here - second row, middle selection in the gallery.
What'dya mean there's no BLINK tag!?
You can probably get alot of plastic shelving from office depot/etc. which you can stack ontop of your existing file cabinates. If possible, try to get permission to hang items from the drop ceiling.
i was sick of the fluorescent lights which others in the room needed, so i built a roof for my cubicle:
:)
http://www.mskf.org/roof/ - directory of pictures
not for everyone, but it keeps me happy.
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