Eliminate Mess for Success: Organizing Your Workspace for Efficiency
Is your workspace in a constant state of chaos? An organized mess only you know how to navigate? While you might have your workarounds for dealing with a cluttered space, it could be interfering with your productivity and increasing your stress. The good news is that you can turn the psychological effects of clutter into a positive by cleaning up and organizing your workspace in a way that works for you.
How Does an Organized Workspace Affect Productivity and Stress Levels?
If you’re like the average person, you could be spending 4.3 hours every week digging through those piles to find the papers you need. That cuts into the other important tasks of your day, which impedes your productivity.
Clutter can also be damaging in other ways. It’s often emotionally draining and could cause you to procrastinate in making decisions. That can decrease your productivity even more while leaving you feeling stressed and exhausted. Procrastination also forces you to make up for lost time to get back on track, which can be stressful.
What is it about a cluttered desk that causes these negative feelings? Piles of items on your desk can cause visual clutter, which is often overwhelming and distracting. When you clean up your desk, you take control of your physical environment and remove those distractions. That can help empower you and give you the mental clarity you need to excel.
What Are the Steps to Decluttering a Messy Desk?
You’ve determined your desk clutter is hurting your productivity. But you also need those files, office supplies, and tools to get the job done. Learning how to manage the items and implement organization tools can help. Follow these steps to declutter your messy desk:
- Get rid of anything obvious that doesn’t belong. That might be trash, broken items, or work tools you never use.
- Go through everything else critically. Just because something didn’t get tossed automatically doesn’t mean it should stay. Make sure you only keep items you truly need and use in your office.
- Assess what’s left. Decide if it needs to stay on top of your desk or if there’s a better home for it. Consider other storage and organizational areas within your office, such as storage cabinets, filing cabinets, or cork boards.
- Sort items into different piles based on where you plan to store them. That helps you visualize where the items will be. If you’re not sure where to put certain items, consider how, when, and where you use them. Find a spot that makes them convenient in those situations.
- Add organizational tools as necessary. File organizers, extra storage drawers, desk drawer dividers, and other tools can help you sort the items that stay in your desk.
Tips for Organizing Your Workspace
No two desks will look exactly the same after the decluttering and organizing process. What works for your cubicle neighbor might leave you feeling stressed or constantly searching for what you need. Use these tips to customize your organization:
- Think about how you work. Maybe color coding is effective for you. Some people like to have essential tools out in the open, while others want everything hidden. Use what you know about your work habits and preferences to organize your space.
- Give everything a spot. Regardless of where you store an item, give it a designated spot so you’re more likely to put it away. A pegboard for office supplies is an example. The empty pegs remind you to put those items back in place when you’re done. It’s also easier to go right where the item lives when you need it, so you don’t waste time searching.
- Reduce paper clutter when necessary. Going paperless when possible helps reduce clutter and keep your space organized. Just make sure you use effective file organization for those digital documents so you can still find them easily.
- Touch it up every day. Even with organizers in place, it’s still possible for items to get misplaced or left out when you’re in the middle of a busy project. Set aside a little time at the end of each day to tidy up so your desk is ready for the next day.
- Change organizational methods if necessary. Sometimes you won’t know what will work best for you until you’ve worked in the space for a while. While you should give your methods a chance, you don’t need to force yourself to continue with an organization method that doesn’t fit your style. Adjust areas that aren’t effective for you as you go.
Add in some “deskercises” you can do daily and you’ll be on your way to higher productivity and lower stress levels.
Explore Learning Opportunities
Creating a productive work environment is one way to strengthen your career momentum. You can build on that foundation by exploring professional development training opportunities that help you target the skills and behaviors most aligned with your goals.
As an owner of the Dale Carnegie Mid-Atlantic franchise, McKonly & Asbury is able to offer an extension of services to our clients and friends of the firm, expanding our expertise in the areas of leadership, team building, and people development as Dale Carnegie offers programs in leadership, management development, customer engagement, service, sales, communication, and more.
About the Author
McKonly & Asbury is a leading Mid-Atlantic accounting and business advisory services firm that serves as a trusted advisor and valued business partner to many of the region’s most prominent organizations. With experience across a range of services, including advisory and business consulting, audit and assurance, tax, technology, CMMC, HITRUST, and internal audit, the firm helps clients navigate complex challenges and achieve their business goals. McKonly & Asbury specializes in providing industry-specific solutions for sectors such as Affordable Housing, Construction, Employee Benefit Plans, Family-owned Businesses, Healthcare, Retail, Manufacturing and Distribution, Nonprofit, and more.
