Make a Clean Desk Of It!

Didn’t want Jan­u­ary to end with­out putting a fea­ture on our propen­sity for New Year’s res­o­lu­tions and how we always want to have our office desks clean and unclut­tered. This arti­cle puts us in the right frame of mind. And puts us in our place actually.

Read on!

By Rhymer Rigby
Pub­lished: Jan­u­ary 5 2009 20:21 | Last updated: Jan­u­ary 5 2009 20:21

At this time of year thoughts turn to mak­ing a clean, clutter-free start. In res­o­lu­tion­ary frame of mind, you imag­ine how effi­cient and effec­tive you would be if your work­space no longer looked like a favela with a com­puter in the mid­dle. So you roll up your sleeves and tidy your desk. But tidy­ing your desk is treat­ing the symp­toms, not the causes, of clut­ter – which are you, your habits, your dis­or­gan­i­sa­tion and your hoard­ing ten­den­cies. Declut­ter your desk today and within a fort­night you will have a fresh mess.

Per­sonal coach Miranda Ken­net says this resolution-based approach is wrong: like so many new year res­o­lu­tions, it is likely to peter out in Feb­ru­ary: “While it is a joy to dis­cover what kind of wood your desk is made of, ide­ally what you want to do is cre­ate new habits that last more than a week.”

Stan­dolyn Robert­son, pres­i­dent of the US-based National Asso­ci­a­tion of Pro­fes­sional Organ­is­ers, also believes most peo­ple start off on the wrong foot: “The first mis­take I see peo­ple make is that they start organ­is­ing them­selves by going shop­ping to buy the things they need. But you should set up the sys­tems first. Don’t let the prod­ucts dic­tate the sys­tems. Often you don’t need to buy any­thing.” An exam­ple of a sim­ple sys­tem is a paper pro­cess­ing rou­tine: “When you col­lect mail in the morn­ing, open it stand­ing by the shred­der instead of at your desk.”

Ms Robert­son says you might begin your desk declut­ter­ing by think­ing about zones. “Start by putting like with like – for instance, sta­tionery, soft­ware and per­sonal items. You may dis­cover you have six boxes of sta­ples and you’ll also work out what you need at your fin­ger­tips.” Divide your work into action files, things that are less urgent and those that can be archived. You need to value your work area: “Often peo­ple will archive stuff in the bot­tom left drawer when it could be archived else­where in the building.”

Ms Ken­net says an impor­tant move can be sim­ply reduc­ing the vol­ume of stuff that passes across your desk: “Can you read jour­nals online – and is there some­one you can del­e­gate some of this stuff to?” Part of declut­ter­ing your desk may be to stream­line your job – plenty of senior peo­ple do “legacy tasks” that are far beneath their posi­tion because they have never got round to pass­ing them on to some­one more appropriate.

She also sug­gests look­ing at how your day works: “If you’re a busy per­son, chances are there is always some­thing more press­ing than organ­is­ing your desk, but there are times when your energy is fairly low and when you’re not at your most dynamic. So at, say, 4pm get your­self a cup of tea, put on the iPod and spend 15 min­utes on your desk.” This can be a good way to declut­ter your job: “If you are con­stantly inter­rupted, you might want to hold surg­eries dur­ing this time when any­one can come to see you.”

Ms Robert­son advises: “Keep it sim­ple and elim­i­nate as many steps as pos­si­ble. If it doesn’t res­onate with you it won’t work.” And be real­is­tic. The pop­u­lar notion that you should touch a piece of paper only once “is prob­a­bly true only of toi­let paper”. But, she says, you should have a kind of “use-by” date: “Instead of keep­ing old cell­phones, find out who recy­cles them. And keep 25 per cent of each drawer free – just to make using them easier.”

Alex Chea­tle, chief exec­u­tive of concierge ser­vice Ten UK, advo­cates remov­ing some of the clutter-creators beyond your own work­sta­tion: “Get rid of the office pho­to­copier and replace it with a shred­der and a scan­ner.” He adds that you should also use elec­tronic faxes that sim­ply divert to an in-box as “no one checks the old fax any­more” and have an intranet that would include, say, an online phone­book. How­ever, he does believe in hav­ing more print­ers, as that can result in less out­put remain­ing unclaimed. Lastly: “It would be truly delight­ful if Post-it notes were banned.”

Some, how­ever, are con­vinced that some clut­ter is no trou­ble at all. Eric Abra­ham­son, pro­fes­sor of man­age­ment at Colum­bia Busi­ness School and author of A Per­fect Mess, says many peo­ple func­tion well with clut­tered work­sta­tions and the real prob­lem is that they offend tidy types who make them feel guilty. In fact, says Prof Abra­ham­son: “If I had to make a new year’s res­o­lu­tion it wouldn’t be to declut­ter my desk, it would be to stop feel­ing guilty about the clut­ter on my desk. Take the time you’d spend organ­is­ing your work­place and spend it with your kids instead.”

Copy­right The Finan­cial Times Lim­ited 2009