Tag: Office products

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Your messy office desk may help you think more clearly!

As you’d expect from an office supplies company, here at Loco (http://www.Loco.ie) we’ve always been proponents of clean, de-cluttered office desks and workstations. After all, we stock thousands upon thousands of office products which are designed to organise your desktop stationery and paper supplies so you can work more effectively. However, new research indicates that messy office desks could in fact help employees to think more clearly!

Scientists from the University of Groningen in Germany found that people who worked on messy office desks (as well as from messy shop fronts), thought more clearly than those with organised, mess-free work areas. It is thought that working among chaos makes the brain seek order and therefore organise thoughts in a clear and concise way.

The researchers behind the study say, “Messy desks may not be as detrimental as they appear to be, as the problem-solving approaches they seem to cause can boost work efficiency or enhance employees’ creativity in problem solving. Business and government managers often promote ‘clean desk’ policies to avoid disorganised offices and messy desks, for the purpose of boosting work efficiency and productivity. This practice is based on the conventional wisdom that a disorganised and messy environment can clutter one’s mind and complicate one’s judgements. However, not all evidence supports this conventional link between a messy environment and a messy mind.”

Those who still believe that tidy office desks lead to tidy minds can take comfort in the fact that the study revealed that not all people found their mind was ordered if their desks were not, however. Strangely, while conservatives among the study group did think more clearly when using messy office desks, political liberals weren’t particularly concerned about the state of their desk to begin with and so it had little effect on their thinking or productivity.

So why not use this new research to explain to your boss why your desk is piled high with files, old, opened envelopes and various office products – you’re not being messy, you’re being productive!

For those of you who can’t stand the thought of working in chaos, however, take a look through all of our office products which will help you de-clutter your desk at http://www.Loco.ie

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Would you steal office supplies?

Believe it or not stealing office supplies has become more and more common in this digital age. It is hard to give a reason why. Maybe it’s that we no longer have the same respect for money or we simply don’t care.

Would you take a pen home from the office supplies cabinet? Would you ‘borrow’ a stapler and not return it to the office? More and more of us think it is ok to take office supplies home to the kids or home office.

Well more and more companies are onto light fingered employees who think it’s ok to raid the office supplies cabinet and take stuff home.  Many companies have initiated a full stock control system for office supplies. Meaning that each employee must sign for every single office product they take from the stock room. The days of open office supplies cabinets are well and truly gone in many progressive companies. Some bigger companies spend well in excess of €100,000 per annum on office supplies. It is believed that up to 20% of these office products can go missing through waste and theft, so it is well worth their while to monitor the stationery cupboard more closely.

The list of office supplies that people tend to thieve is not surprising. Top of the list is the old fashioned pen. Followed by envelopes and ink cartridges. Ink cartridges are probably the most expensive office supplies bought on a regular basis, so the monetary value can  add up very quickly.

So would you steal from your local shop or your local supermarket? Well then don’t steal office supplies from your employer. You’re lucky enough to have a job!!!!

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Keep forgetting stuff? Why not pick up a cheap wall or notice board?

In today’s world, it seems like we have to constantly manage an avalanche of information. Indeed, it’s been said that today’s era is the Information Age, where you’re in much greater danger of being overwhelmed with data than under-stimulated, and you’d struggle to find anyone working in an office in Ireland who disagrees. But having said that, do we really still need such ‘old-fashioned’ equipment as notice and white boards from places like Loco (http://www.Loco.ie)?

The answer for many of us is a rather surprising “yes”. But allow us to explain. You might have thought that in the year 2012, when it seems that hardly any of us doesn’t have a smartphone or tablet computer with some kind of calendar or notes app on it, the trusty old notice board would be a thing of the past. The problem is, though, that many of us can simply forget about our sophisticated devices during the day, and with it, all of those vitally important appointments and work deadlines.

In any case, why would you want to depend on a small device shoved in your pocket, when you can have something big and prominent right in front of you in the office, providing a much-needed constant reminder of your commitments for the coming days, weeks or even months? After all, many of us are stuck in the office constantly anyway, slaving away over the latest big assignment well into the evening, so you might as well ensure that those things that you need to do are not left ‘out of sight, out of mind’.

This brings us nicely to the wall and notice boards that take pride of place amongst our wider range of business supplies here at Loco. You might just want a simple drywipe board on which to jot down and rub out assignment information, meeting minutes and diagrams to your heart’s content, and sure enough, we have plenty of those. Alternatively, you may want to take a look at our many notice boards, on which you can pin that latest relevant press release, letter of thanks from a client or even a photo of your loved ones to keep you company over a long work day.

In keeping with our status as the complete online office supplies store, we also offer appropriate notice board and dryboard accessories, ranging from large headed pins and wipe board eraser wipes to erasing spray and dryboard pens that provide bright marks that can be wiped off easily without trace. Who would have thought that there were so many office products associated with wall and notice boards and keeping track of vital everyday information?

Nor are we even restricted to office equipment, as we sell a range of chalk boards that can be a good choice for both the school and the office. Simply visit http://www.Loco.ie today for a closer look at the wider range of wall and notice boards that we offer.

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Technology in the Workplace

Technology. It’s everywhere. In your pocket, in your ear, on your wrist, in your car. It really dominates our lives – because we need it.

Wherever you happen to work, you’re probably surrounded by technology. Even those lucky enough to work in the great outdoors or the most remote corners of the planet rely heavily on all sorts of technical devices, from the humble compass to GPS devices with satellite connections.

Medical practitioners, emergency services, schoolteachers, factory workers, truck drivers – you name it – it’s hard to think of any job of work, trade or profession that could continue to function without a plethora of devices and machines that make it all possible.

Businesses are particularly dependent on technology. Most modern offices just couldn’t function without an arsenal of technology that improve efficiency and enable us to get the job done. Some people love it, others are not so keen, but there’s no getting away from it.

We depend on it to get through the day. If, by some extraordinary event, all our technology was taken away, it’s hard to imagine how we could survive, and, in fact, many couldn’t. Farmers could not produce the food we eat, distributors could not move product around and retailers just would not be able to stock their shelves. Imagine the chaos! Food and fuel shortages, collapsing infrastructure and security – every man and woman for him or herself. I suppose one positive aspect in all this would be that our capacity to kill each other and destroy the environment would also be greatly reduced, but I for one don’t think that would be worth it. My son tells me that human capacity for fulfillment as a species peaked about 25,000 years ago, around the time we first started to develop tools for farming, and it’s been a downhill slide of competitiveness and increasing stress ever since. But in the strictest sense, we’ve always had technology. From when the first man (or woman) sharpened a stick in order to more easily dispatch a prey, or an enemy, the advantage of technology has inspired us to create, invent, and improve throughout history.

This has produced some truly spectacular results, such as the recent Mars landing, medical devices that keep us alive and stunning advances in understanding and our ability to share information.

For many, and the point of this article, technology in the workplace is about the office environment, where we tend to take so much for granted – from air conditioning to modern computers with high speed internet connections, not to mention the simple things, like the stapler, or even the humble pencil.

With all this going on around us all the time, it’s easy to become overwhelmed. Most people adjust, adapt and benefit from technology. There are the Luddites who scorn all change, there are those who develop phobias, and there are enthusiasts who can sometimes go overboard and become consumed by gadgets and gizmos. The point is that technology is supposed to make life easier: with so much choice, and the ever accelerating pace of change that we live with today, stress levels have never been higher, and can become particularly acute when the time comes to buy some new equipment for the office – Will it work? Am I getting value for money? What happens if something goes wrong? Is this the right product for my business? What are my competitors using? Etc. etc.

All of these factors have been taken into consideration in the design, development and management of our business at Loco. We can’t – and wouldn’t want to – recommend a return to stone age simplicity, not least because we embrace technology , but we can and do make it a lot easier for you to make the right buying decisions by offering best value from the broadest range of items and sound advice on your office requisites. Our on-line store is easy to use and will assist you in finding the Office products that are right for you.