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In many offices, the busier you get, the more cluttered and unproductive your workspace becomes. Every team requires a process to keep things tidy and organized in order to maintain efficiency. This may appear to be a simple task, but when we are in our offices every day, it is easy to become accustomed to the clutter and even immune to it. This frequently results in unanticipated organizational issues. It may appear to be a minor detail, but having a system in place to keep a workspace free of clutter and confusion is often a good indicator of a team’s ability to manage more complex issues, such as a distribution system or workflow.
Clutter can be difficult and chaotic. When you try to work in a cluttered environment, you may notice that your productivity and effectiveness suffer. Use these decluttering and organization tips to help clean your workspace.
1. Keep Only What is Needed
Rather than attempting to make individual decisions about what to keep and what to discard, it is sometimes preferable to get rid of everything and then gradually add things back as needed. Consider it your computer’s desktop. More shortcuts appear on the desktop background as you install more applications. When you remove all of those shortcuts, you realize that so few of them were used.
The same rule applies to your office, whether it’s at home or offsite. It’s common to find items in a workspace that haven’t been touched in months, but that doesn’t mean they have to stay. Allowing them to take up valuable space while adding nothing to your productivity is a bad idea. You can more effectively and objectively keep only the essentials by getting rid of everything and then adding things back in as needed. Although this method may appear extreme, it is an excellent way to quickly identify which items do not serve a purpose or obstruct your productivity (though we won’t judge you if you keep a few items for nostalgic reasons).
2. Practical Approach Must be Applied
Following the start from scratch method to reduce clutter, the next step is to set up the remaining items in your workstation in order of how frequently you use them. To boost your workflow, keep your most frequently used items (such as chargers and notebooks) in the top filing cabinets, where they are easy to reach. Pencils and pencils should be kept in a nearby cup, and other supplies (such as headphones, staples, and rubber bands) should be kept in lower drawers. Arrange the rest of the office in the same way, with your least-used items at the far end. This simple system will boost productivity by ensuring that your most frequently used items are always close at hand, while your other personal items are hidden away and off your desk.
3. Proper Waste Segregation is a Must
There is a reason why leaders of all kinds use the rule of three: it works. Create three boxes or bags: keep, recycle, or discard; and place them somewhere else if you want to organize your supplies and belongings faster. You should be able to put everything in its proper place. Even those who are sentimental and tend to hold on to certain objects can find new homes for their belongings while still reducing clutter in the workplace. Consider which items can be recycled (papers and plastics) and which can be discarded (empty bottles, flyers, and leaflets).
4. Manage Your Cables
The quantity of cables in every office seems to multiply exponentially, from phone and laptop chargers to HDMI cords and headphone adapters. Because you use your cables from time to time, this could be an ongoing issue. When a problem arises with any of your electronics, this lack of organization can cause significant delays in detecting and fixing the problem.
Investing in a cleaning company and then labeling every cable as you install it in your office is an excellent solution to this problem. The next step is to hire a cleaning service that can quickly and easily organize your cables and, perhaps more importantly, ensure that they stay organized and tidy in the future. You can also make labels and organization boxes out of film containers, paper holders, shoeboxes, and other household items if you want to be creative and save money.
