You are tasked with ordering stationery supplies for your office. Setting up and actioning the office stationery checklist is our favourite task. We appreciate you may not hold the job in such high esteem. So, to help you out, we have created this ultimate stationery checklist to help you make your order.
Paper-based products
First, you need the essentials for a functioning office:
- Printer paper
- File paper
- Coloured card
- Heavy-duty card
- Graph paper
- Tracing paper
- Business cards
- Letterhead paper
For those looking to be extra thoughtful, you might want to stock up on greeting cards that can be issued to staff and special clients. Going the extra mile makes a smile. yes, we really just said that.
Postage Items
- Envelopes of all sizes
- Padded Envelops
- Postage stamps, or a franking machine if you are fancy
- Bubble packaging
- Cardboard postage boxes of varying sizes
Those other essentials
All those items you use to fill up your pencil case when you are at school the pens, pencils, sharpeners, erasers, highlighter pens maybe even a ruler.
- All-purpose markers
- Dry-wipe markers
- Correction fluid
- Stapler and the right-sized staples
- Scissors
- Paperclips
- Sticky tape
- Sticky notes
- Glue
- Pins
- Printer cartridges, if it is not the responsibility of IT
- Laminating sheets
Then, let’s not forget some essentials for the cleanliness of the office:
- Disinfectant wipes
- Hand sanitiser
- Paper towels
- Garbage bags
- Washing up liquid
Miscellaneous other
Miscellaneous is the catch-all for those items you never knew you needed to order. They are items that you only need periodically and so can easily fall under the radar. Imagine how useful some of these items might be to your office:
- Paperweights
- Corkboards
- Whiteboards
- Letter opener
- Pen holders
- On-desk storage trays
- Containers
- Computers
- Monitors
- Keyboard
- Mouse
- Printer
- Telephones
- Projector
- Photocopier
- Laminator
- Surge protector
- Scanner
- Shredder
- Extension cords
- First aid kit
Maybe you should also include some of the essential furniture items on the list too as this is the ultimate guide. Such as:
- Filing cabinets
- Tables
- Chairs
- Bookcase
- Shelving
- Bins
- Recycling Bins
Some favourites you should not overlook
Do you remember when you were a kid, and you weren’t allowed to move on to a pen until you had mastered cursive handwriting? You were expected to write in pencil up until the point you were promoted. Some of us who barely made it to the pen moment before graduating from university still love a good old HB pencil. Imagine what we would miss out on if there was no HB pencil in our lives. There would be no 14-page scribbled stories by seven-year-olds. There would be no sketch on your fridge of… something… you can’t remember what your 5-year-old said. Holding an HB pencil brings back all that muscle memory of creativity. It frees us up and stops being afraid of potential mistakes. The pencil and the eraser outstrip the back button on the keyboard by miles!
If you loved your pencil in primary school, then you adored the electric pencil sharpener on the teacher’s desk. Here you would queue with your blunt pencil, and you would delight in the whizz of the sharpener. There is no need to queue at the teacher’s desk anymore – you can have your own, on your desk.
Then you need a memo pad. Do you remember those TV programmes where the cops and the lawyers scribbled notes on yellow memo pads? Imagine freeing up your imagination, being free to scribble on those sheets. You know you can rip that sheet off the pad, screw up a bad idea into a ball, and aim it at your wastepaper recycling bin. Sometimes old school is better than all these new-fangled tech devices.
You might also be surprised to hear that reading and writing with white paper is challenging for a lot of people. It can cause words and letters to float on the page and for some, staring at white paper causes headaches. So, choosing a yellow pad is not only cool; it is also inclusive.
Finally, but no less essential in this list of favourites, is the multi-coloured sticky tabs. Whoever invented little bits of coloured paper that could stick and be removed from the paper; you can write simple words, or you can create a personal filing system. These little slips of paper can offer hours of distraction from more challenging work tasks.
