Organized Offices Increase Productivity

Many of us spend more time during our lives at work then we do with friends, family, and even our spouses.  Work can often be stressful and that stress can build up over the day and follow you into your personal life.  There are multiple factors that contribute to the stress of work:

• Tons of paperwork
• Multiple projects with similar deadlines
• time and resource management
• Boss’s expectations

These are only a few examples, but having all of these existing stress sources makes little room for being disorganized and cluttered.  By developing an effective system to manage and organize all of your responsibilities, deadlines, to dos, and meetings you can spend more time on what is important and less on constantly figuring out what you need to do next.  Not to mention clutter is visible in your peripheral vision and is picked up by your sub-conscious even if you are focusing on work.  The clutter is a constant reminder of everything that you have to get done in the day which can distract you and reduce productivity.

Luckily there are many ways that one can organize and declutter an office in a way that will last.  An important thing to remember about decluttering in an office environment is that computers can get cluttered too.  Below are a few tips that can help you become and stay organized:

• Find a place for everything. It can be easy to let paperwork and other materials stack up over time in your desk.  The same thing can happen on a computer with the files and their organization.  Make sure that you find a descriptive and obvious place to put everything so that you know where to find it.  Immediately when you receive a new task or file, spend a few minutes on detailing what it is and how you are going to handle it.  Then put it away and return to what you were focusing on.  This way you can feel comfortable knowing when and what you have to do so that you can focus on the task at hand without the distraction of clutter and impending deadlines.
• Scan appropriate documents and save them on the computer. Stacks of paperwork and even excessive file cabinets can lead to less space in the room and on the desk.  Many files and paperwork can easily be scanned into a computer and saved for later use.  The physical copy can be disposed of and more space can be opened up.  Be sure that you backup any important documents on web services or a backup hard drive.
• Use calendar services like outlook or google. Without a clear plan of action to execute every task and duty by the appropriate deadlines, it can be stressful and reduce focus on whats important. Spend a little bit of time each week and each morning planning a little bit and using a calendar to stay organized.  This way you can focus and let later tasks come later guild free.  However, make sure that you don’t spend too much time planning in place of actually getting things done.
• Rearrange the room. Decluttering is usually associated with finding the appropriate places for or removing items.  However, essentially decluttering is about opening up more useful space.  Especially if everything that takes up space is essential, rearranging the room can be a great way to open up space without removing important tools.

If you have are very busy or have a huge project that needs to be organized, consider contacting a personal assistant to help with organization.  Contact My Divine Concierge today for more information.