Making Your Workspace Clutter-Free: 5 Tips for High Performance
When your to-do list starts to feel overwhelming, reorganizing the workspace might help you get through the pile much faster.
A clutter-free workspace also helps reduce your ‘mental’ clutter and makes it much simpler to finish a task.
Think about how many extra steps you have to think about when you can’t find a file or notepad. By eliminating the extra thought processes involved in finding what you need, when you need it, you’ll be able to think more clearly and get the job done! Here are some tips on making your workspace clutter-free and get into high-performance zone in no time:
- The power of one. Start a fresh new habit this week, making sure you only touch or ‘mentally address’ each item on your desk once. This means paperwork is scanned quickly then filed away, a note or message is reviewed and posted where it needs to go, and letters are opened now and handled immediately–or set in the outbox for later. Making a habit of only touching each item once will stop you from wasting mental space checking, reviewing, and thinking about the same item over and over again.
- Create an outbox for your desk. This pile is solely for letters, envelopes, and items that need to be distributed to other people or other rooms. You can organize this at the end of the day, and having it physically in front of you will help you get rid of excess material much more efficiently.
- Invest in a storage system or shelving. If your work demands piles of paperwork on a regular basis, take the steps to create folders and files that keep the papers off your desk as much as possible. If you work in a paperless office instead, make sure that notes and other paper clutter have been filed or sorted so you don’t distract yourself while focusing on the screen.
- Keep magazines out of sight. Unless you’re using the material for your work, magazines are an easy distraction when you need to focus on the job at hand instead. Magazines, media materials, and even books can be stored in their own shelf; and far from your peripheral vision!
- Clean the desk completely at the end of the day. Organizing and filing for just 10 minutes before the end of the day will help you get a fresh start the following day and ensure that any post-it notes and simple notes have been transferred to your calendar, PDA, or other organizer; when you’re done, throw out the notes so you’re free of the excess paper.
Remember that efficient thinking requires you to take as few steps as possible to complete a task; the steps you take to make your work environment work for you, the easier it will be to get your projects done.
Share your tips and suggestions below!
4 Comments
Warren Greeley
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:55 am
keeping the [computer] desktop clean is a huge advantage too. If there is a lot of programs and web pages open, random files and folders on the desktop, etc., you are much more likely to get distracted. Keeping a clean computer space as well as office space is a good thing to maintain as well.
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September 23rd, 2007 at 2:16 pm
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