Unfortunately, in an office environment, your personal office supplies may have a tendency to end up in someone else’s possession, or on someone else’s desk. This isn’t because someone is necessarily stealing your items. It could be that your stapler looks just like their stapler, or sometimes people just forget to return things that they borrow. Here are a just a few ideas you can use to avoid putting yourself in this position.

First of all, if you keep your work area neat and organized, it will be much less likely that you will lose or misplace items, so it is very important to have a place on your desk for all of your office supplies and equipment. If possible, it can also be very helpful if you have storage for everything, so that when you leave the office, or go home for the evening, everything can be cleared from your desk and safe in a file cabinet, drawer or in a shelf. Not only will this help you to avoid missing property, but if you come in each morning to a clean desk you should find it easier to get started with your daily routine and you will tend to only pull out the office supplies you need. Organization is the key to running an efficient workplace and should be the foundation you use to build on each and every day.

If you have a label maker, you can make some small labels to put on your items. That way if they do happen to "wander off," you will at least be able to hopefully find them and bring them back. You don’t have to print out your full name, just your initials. Make the labels small enough that they won’t compromise the functionality of the item itself, but make sure they are clear and legible. If you are going through all of your office supplies in order to label them, it will also be a good idea to make note of all the items you have and keep an inventory of them. This will make it easier to figure out if you are missing something, and what particular item it is you are missing.

If there is a certain person or persons you work with that tend to accidentally end up with other people’s items on a regular basis, you should definitely mention it to them. A lot of times, people do not even realize that they’ve permanently borrowed something and if they do, a reminder that those are your items should suffice in keeping it from happening again. If this type of behavior continues after you ask nicely and courteously for it to stop, it should certainly be brought to the attention of a manager.

Your work should be the most important thing on your mind during the work day, because after all, that’s what you are at work to do, so worrying about lost or missing office supplies should be a concern that you don’t have to think about. Just by being a little organized and setting up a system for yourself you should be able to put more focus on your work and waste less energy thinking about other things.