Several people have some clutter in their lives. Be it a messy, overstuffed closet, or a messy office desk, there's always the need to do some cleaning and decluttering. Though seemingly inconsequential, studies show that having a lot of clutter within proximity of your workspace can lead to mental disorganization and an inability to have clarity in thought. Clutter in your office space can also activate stress and anxiety since it can distract one from relaxing easily (Psychology Today). The purpose of this article is to highlight the benefits of decluttering and how best to clear any desk space for optimum productivity.
The negative impact of clutter in your office space
Clutter is time-wasting
The average employee spends nearly two hours daily searching for things inside a cluttered office (Lam, The Atlantic, 2014). That is almost two hours of valuable work time used in an unproductive manner. Time means money for every business; thus, every hour spent away from connecting with customers, attending meetings, responding to emails, or answering phone calls is time spent away from potential income and increasing your bottom line.
Chaotic, crowded, and unorganized spaces are very difficult to work in. This may result in feeling out of control in the work environment, thus leading to unproductivity, and minimized desire to work.
2. Clutter hinders creativity
Clean, organized, and breathable spaces are ideal for creativity and productivity. A cluttered office can feel overwhelming and out of control, ultimately preventing employees from achieving their highest potential.
With the inability to be creative or productive comes an increased stress level. Clutter is known to induce a psychological response, usually characterized by an increase in a person's cortisol levels. This means the longer an employee remains in a cluttered environment, the faster their physical health starts to be affected.
How to declutter your office effectively.
Be practical with the organization.
When organizing your office, it is best to arrange all office items according to their usage frequency. Items such as pens and books are used daily, while your user manuals might be needed every three to six months. Items used regularly should be placed in upper office drawers, where access is easy and fairly quick. Those that aren't used as often will fit well in lower drawers.
2. Digitize paper documents as much as you can
Several offices owe their clutter to the use of paper. Paper-based documents, sticky notes, business cards, and many more are the first culprit for office clutter. When accumulated, paper is heavy and bulky and takes up an immense amount of space.
To reduce your paper clutter, opt for digitizing all documents. This can be done by scanning, creating e-copies, or typing out things that might have been written on paper before. Offices can adopt note-taking apps such as Google Keep, Evernote, and Google Docs, which offer you the opportunity to save your notes on the cloud.
3. Only keep the things you need
It is also prudent to prioritize the needful things. You may do this by clearing your entire office and keeping the essential things that are needed for your everyday task. This process might be tasking and, to some, daunting, but using one weekend to clean your office may lead to increased productivity and a happier outlook in the workplace. Besides, this process presents the opportunity to identify items that haven't been touched or used in the office for months and those that impede productivity.
It is worth noting that, decluttering is directly related to mindsets and habits. To this end, we recommend that the activity of decluttering become a habit such that even in organizing your space, every arrangement is done to prevent future clutter. To achieve this, employees need to be encouraged to develop new habits of organization and cleanliness. Preventing clutter from the offbeat is the surest way to stay clutter-free.
Resources
Here are additional resources for you to further increase your janitorial knowledge and stay updated on new trends in facility maintenance
Distinct Cleaning News and Media Post: Easy to read blog articles on various topics and trends in the commercial janitorial space.
Janitorial Work and Tutorial Videos: Quick cleaning tutorial and before and after videos intended to give the audience a glimpse into various janitorial works.
Janitorial Coaching Hub: The janitorial coaching hub endeavors to help cleaning service providers build, grow and establish their cleaning companies by providing them with useful resources to be successful.
