Packing Supplies and Solutions

If you’re someone like me with their own office at the workplace, you’ve probably considered at one point or another how bland your room is. And at times, it can even be a bit depressing how barren and devoid of character it seems.

But I recently did something about mine and it didn’t even cost that much or take any effort. Now, I feel like it’s a lot more homey and personalized than it was before, something that makes me happier on the job.

And that’s something I wanted to note, too. If you dislike your office space, you’re giving yourself a much higher chance of disliking your job itself. I mean, who wants to sit in a boring and bland room and do work, right? But if you enjoy where you sit and work, you’ll likely have a much higher chance of enjoying your job and the people you work among.

With that said, here are a few of my tips on updating your office to make your life on the job a heck of a lot more enjoyable.

Maximizing your personality within your office.

The number one piece of advice I can give to anyone is to make your office space you. If you don’t have the things you enjoy collecting, looking at, using, or whatever it is you prefer, then it’s not going to feel familiar to you and you’re not going to enjoy being in your workplace much.

I know I absolutely despise overhead lighting as it comes off far too clinical for my tastes. So I prefer to use a standing lamp in my room. It gives me the ambience I prefer while typing away without seeming too bright.

Making it comfortable.

Some kind of furniture needs to go in your office room at some point. Whether it’s a single armchair, a love seat, or even a cheaper futon, giving yourself a place to sit down more comfortably every two hours or so will give you a fresh change of pace to the day and even change your point of view.

Having the right supplies.

If you don’t have the right office and shipping supplies available to you, it can make doing certain tasks a bit tougher. And it’s never fun to ask around the workplace if someone else has tape or mailing envelopes, especially if you feel like you need to pay them back. Stock up on your shipping and office supplies about once a year, and have a specific compartment, container, or drawer dedicated to those supplies.

Moving can be quite the stressful task, especially if you’ve got quite the load moving from one house to the next. With that much stuff, it can take a very long time to pack up your belongings at one house, make multiple trips to the new one, unload it all, and finally put away everything. Moving can oftentimes take up to a month to complete if you don’t have enough people helping you throughout the multiple stages of the process.

I’m not overly worried about my move from my apartment to a new house in about a year. Honestly, my girlfriend and I like to live small as it already is, so I can’t imagine having a huge house in the first place to populate all sorts of furniture with. Right now with what we’ve currently got at our apartment, that should only take a day of packing into a trailer or two (that her dad owns, thankfully). From there, it’s just getting it all into the new place. And again, since the house we’ll likely get won’t be much more than 2500 to 3000 square feet, getting it all unpacked and put away and in place with just a few helping hands won’t be overly stressful.

This is what makes it all interesting, though. Without proper planning and the right packaging supplies and cheap moving boxes, well, things take a lot more time to complete. It’s all about efficiency and planning, not how strong your movers are and how many helping hands you have. There is such a thing as having too many people around to help, but there’s no such thing as planning too much ahead and having it all lined out.

If you’re planning a move soon, the number one thing you can do is prepare, organize, and plan. If the phases are laid out clearly, everything is organized and boxed up in their cheap moving boxes beforehand, and the appropriate moving supplies are on hand, well, you won’t be complaining nearly as much had you not prepared, and your anxiety level about the whole ordeal will be much lower.

Don’t wait around until the day you’re moving; get ahead of the task, make sure your movers know the plans, and execute when the time comes. It’s a lot easier to do these things than you think, but it’s just about doing them and getting them done.

When it comes time to take down the holiday decorations and clean up your place, it can be a daunting task (which is typically why so many of us put off taking down the decor until February). And the longer you put it off, the more you’re not going to want to do it and things will build up. This, then, makes it last even longer until you actually handle putting it all away. It’s almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But man, when you do finally clean house and put everything away for good, it feels really good to have it out of the way.

Just recently my parents came to visit and I realized it was finally time to clean up the place, put everything away, and get all of their decorations packed up. Seriously, just the fact that my mom let us use her decorations for Christmas was all it took for me to finally clean everything up and take stuff down. All because she was coming to visit and would probably like to get her decorations back home and stored away for the year.

And now, my place looks so much better. So much cleaner, more open, and a slightly emptier (which is fine). It’s almost directly impacted my mood, in a way that feels great. I don’t have to stress about packing everything up into storage or putting away all my gifts from the holidays. There’s no more clutter, things are more organized and in order, and now I can relax more once I get home (instead of feeling like there’s this impending sense of cleaning that needs to be done every night I come home from work).

What’s really helped move along the cleaning process is having the appropriate packaging supplies. By having all sorts of cardboard boxes, packaging tape, labels and markers, and other various items, I’ve been able to sort things away a lot easier and bundle like items up to put in the basement. Now, there are not so many things laying around the place scattered and waiting to be stepped on. Instead, they’re in cardboard boxes and labeled so that I know what’s in that box and where it all is.

It goes to show how having some extra packaging supplies on hand at all times makes things like cleaning, shipping, and moving so much easier. Without those things, I feel like I’d still have a clutter in my basement “storage” that isn’t any better than those items were strewn about upstairs.

Sometimes during the dead of winter we find ourselves completely and utterly confounded as to how the weather can get so absolutely cold.

And what inspires that thought is the winter vortex that’s about to slam the Midwest.

For the most part, we’re all pretty good about preparing for inclement weather. You know, letting your coworkers know that it’s on the way when you talk about the weather in your everyday small talk. Going out to the grocery to prepare for a few days’ worth of vittles. Heck, you even remember to put your windshield wipers up before the ice takes hold and freezes them solid to the glass.

But boy oh boy, when it all hits, people still lose their minds.

Sometimes you’ll see countless vehicles along the side of the road when making your commute to work. And sometimes, you still see parking lots at grocery stores absolutely jammed back because of all of those people who forgot to stock up beforehand. (And the local liquor store is quite the popular spot during these times.)

It’s the activities you choose to engage in during particularly bad weather that determines your safety, though. If you absolutely insist on going to that event you had planned that’s two hours away, you’re seriously risking your safety all for something that could be done again, even if it means waiting until next year.

Just as well, there are things you could avoid even around your home that don’t require when the snow and ice hits in full force. You don’t need to be walking any more than a couple of minutes, even if it’s “safer” than driving to the store. Frostbite and hypothermia are serious things to humans who forgot their pair of gloves or stay out in the cold for just a few minutes too long.

Rather than be silly and absentminded, you should hole up in your home and do inside activities with your family or friends. Whether you’re playing video games, board games, hosting a marathon, or even partying, do it all within the safety and comfort of your home.

And if you must go out, dive into those old cheap moving boxes you have in your basement that contain your heaviest of winter coats, hats, and gloves. You’ll need them if you’re attempting to brave the elements. Heck, we understand if it means you’re making a quick walk to the local sports bar to watch your team. But bundling up is an understatement when it comes to truly preparing for heavy snow, ice, and seriously cold temperatures.

So like I said, dig into those cheap moving boxes containing your winter gear. We’d prefer you take caution and stay inside, but sometimes there’s not that much to do inside and you really just wanna walk down to someone else’s place that has more going on.

So, you’ve begun getting your body and mind into a good routine these past few weeks by sticking to your resolutions. (You’re actually one of the few that takes them seriously, by the way.)

The thing is, this isn’t where it stops. It doesn’t suddenly become second nature and with you for life. No. Down the road, sometimes things happen. Sometimes you get really sick, or you have a child, or you get married, or you move into a new place. Well, these are the times that you have to remember your necessity and work extra hard at it. Because these are also the times that derail your routine and throw your everyday habits for a loop.

Think about it. Think back on your life when you started a good habit, a new one that changed your life for the better for the time being. Now, do you still do that same thing on the daily? Has it stuck with you?

If so, good for you. Good for you for keeping at it and making it a part of you.

If not, you’re not alone. But think back on where the habit died. I’ll go out on a limb and guess that it likely happened when you had a major event take part in your life.

Maybe you were packing up some cheap moving boxes and moving into a new house in a new neighborhood in a new city. Maybe you got rid of some of those cheap moving boxes worth of tons of books that you had read as a part of one of your good habits back in the day. Maybe having those books around would have served as a great reminder to keep reading, to increase your knowledge and keep your body on a great sleeping schedule.

Whatever the case may be, your habits have dropped off because you didn’t keep at them in the face of adversity. Can anyone blame you? Not at all. But you can blame yourself. And you can also remember the time that you did all of those good things and how they helped you.

So get started again with whatever it was you used to be good at doing. You did it once. It won’t be as hard as doing it that first time simply because you remember. You remember the good it did you and the way you felt after. That’s all the headstart you need on this second or third or fourth time going back into a good routine.