Back to the Office in September: A Checklist That Isn't Dreadful

September is when the office gets looked at properly. Everyone is back, the holiday cover has gone, and the chair that squeaked in June still squeaks. This is our office refresh checklist. It is short. Nothing on it takes more than an afternoon, and most of it costs nothing.

I handle the delivery paperwork here, so I see what gets ordered in September. It is nearly always the same list. The trick is doing it now, while there is still time for a delivery date to land quietly before the busy stretch.

Office refresh checklist: walk the floor first

Do this with a notepad, not from memory. Sit in every chair for thirty seconds. Lean on every desk. Look at every screen.

1. Chairs. If the gas lift sinks over the day, it has gone. If the back no longer locks, the mechanism has gone. Neither is worth fixing on a chair that cost under about £150, because a replacement costs less than the labour. Write down who sits in each one all day and who sits in it for an hour. They need different chairs.

2. Desks. Push each one at a corner. A wobble usually means a loose frame bolt, and five minutes with an Allen key sorts it. A desk that still rocks with the bolts tight has a bent leg or a split top, and that one is a replacement.

3. Screens. Desk screens live a hard life. Fabric goes shiny where sleeves rub it, clamps crack, and a panel that has been leaned on for two years sags in the middle. A sagging screen does nothing for noise. It just looks tired.

4. Cables. Anything on the floor under a desk goes into a tray or a spine. This is the cheapest line on the list and the one people notice most once it is done.

5. Storage. Open every pedestal drawer. If it sticks, the runner has gone. If the lock has lost its key, sort that now rather than in the week you need the drawer.

6. Paperwork. Find the delivery notes and invoices for anything still under guarantee. Mechanical components on a decent chair carry two to five years. A claim without the paperwork is a slower claim.

What to replace and what to leave

Replace the chairs of the people who sit all day. They are the ones who feel it. The office chairs between £250 and £500 are where five year mechanism guarantees start to appear, and for someone at a desk eight hours a day that is money well spent. For the person who is in for an hour, a task chair from the office chairs category is plenty.

Leave the desks alone unless they rock or the top is damaged. A desk top with a coffee ring is a desk top with a coffee ring. Nobody needs a new one for that.

Screens are the middle case. New desk screens and office dividers change how a room feels more than anything else on this list for the money. The Impulse Plus desktop screens come in oblong, wave and angled shapes and fix to the back edge of a rectangular desk, so you are not replacing the desk to get them. Cables go in a tray from the cable management category. It is the least glamorous order of the year and the one I would place first.

Order it in the right order

Every product page shows a delivery date in working days, with weekends and bank holidays already taken out. Standard delivery is free. Chairs and screens usually arrive on their own dates. Desks and larger items may come on a pallet, and our logistics team will ring to agree a day, so someone needs to be in.

When it arrives, check it while the driver is there. Visible damage, a shortage or a wrong item goes on the delivery paperwork before you sign, and to us in writing within five days with a photo. That is in our terms because it is what keeps a claim against the carrier alive. It is also the part everyone skips.

Keep the delivery note with the invoice. Put both in the folder from step six. Next September, the folder is the checklist.

That is the whole list. One afternoon, a notepad, and the paperwork in one place. Most of the orders I process this month start with the chairs and end with the cables, and the offices that do it in that order are the ones I do not hear from again until next year, which is the point.