Staying organized at work is one of the best ways to ensure productivity and maximum output. Did you know that when you are disorganized, your brain is exposed to too many stimuli, making it difficult to work? Clearing out that excess stimuli can help you stay more focused and therefore get more work done.
Other benefits of staying organized includes less stress, better eating habits, better sleep, and increased likelihood you will stick to your fitness goals. Our friends at Simply Self Storage came up with a list of organization hacks for every facet of your life, but we’re going to focus on how to get organized at work.
As we mentioned before, having an organized work day is incredibly important. This includes mentally, digitally, and physically.
HLW International LLP conducted a study on 400 managers and employees, finding that employee productivity levels were “highly influenced” by the cleanliness of the place that they worked.
You can help cut down on physical clutter in your work space by keeping everything in its place. For example, have a designated drawer for your pencils, pens, paper, stapler, and other office supplies to keep them out of sight and reduce clutter. Not allowing miscellaneous items to pile up on your desk is important to avoid brain overstimulation.
To avoid the need to store tons of physical paper, digitize whenever possible. Use your scanner to make a digital copy of important paperwork, and try to use online signature applications like DocuSign in the future. Online organization applications like Basecamp, Trello, and Asana can help you organize your teams work day completely online.
When it comes to digital clutter, you may not even realize it’s there. However, having a cluttered inbox or a disorganized digital filing system can cause you to lose focus. Studies show that multitasking with electronic media caused a greater decrease in IQ than losing a nights sleep!
Keep your digital world clean means deleting unwanted mail in your inbox, unsubscribing from things you don’t want, and tying up loose ends in your email conversations. Another great way to stay organized is to go through your computer and get rid of any duplicate files. You can create folders and subfolders for organization and erase any old files in your “downloads” folder you no longer need.
If there are a bunch of loose files on your desktop, try to organize them into folders and reward yourself with a soothing or beautiful desktop image. Having a fresh, clean digital work area will help you stay more focused, productive, and relaxed.
Mentally, you can organize your work week by planning what you’ll do a week ahead of time. Writing out your schedule on Friday of the week before can work wonders by helping you mentally prepare over the weekend for upcoming tasks.
If you implement these tips, you’re sure to have a better experience at work in the upcoming year. You can try implementing one per week until each of them becomes habit, and watch your productivity soar!
Post by Karli Jaenike
Karli Jaenike is a content marketer who enjoys sharing information on everything from travel and real estate to productivity hacks and marketing best practices. On the weekends, she loves to explore new places, enjoy the outdoors and have a glass or two of vino.
