Organize Your Workspace for Maximum Productivity

from Unclut​terer​.Com

I got this from the Har­vard Busi­ness Blogs. I remem­ber send­ing this arti­cle to my office­mates sev­eral weeks ago to help all of us clear our desks and work­spaces. I’ve done the tips here myself and I’ve found it to be very help­ful in my own quest to have an unclut­tered work­space. I think the whole thing was trig­gered when I lost a very impor­tant per­sonal doc­u­ment among the impor­tant docs in my desk (I know, I am an anti-clutter freak, but I lose things sometimes–specially the ones which are out of mind and out of reach).

by Gina Tra­pani

As you pilot your way through the busi­ness day, your work­space is your cock­pit. If you can’t see the gauges or reach the con­trols quickly and effi­ciently, you’re in trou­ble. Luck­ily some sim­ple orga­niz­ing tech­niques can make your desk, cubi­cle, or office more con­ducive to higher lev­els of productivity.

Clear the deck. Your elbows and your brain need room to do what they do best, so you’ve got to clear away the clut­ter. Those spon­ta­neous piles of mis­cel­la­neous paper­work, the boxes of stuff tossed in the cor­ner, the tchotchkes from last year’s con­ven­tion? They’ve all got to go. “Out of sight, out of mind” is the direct­ing prin­ci­ple here. Put away (even bet­ter, throw away) any­thing you don’t need to be think­ing about on a daily basis. As for the stuff you do need, choose a sen­si­ble place for it — all of it — and com­mit to keep­ing it there. Once you do that, putting away an item requires no thought or decisions.

Keep only frequently-used items within reach. Split your work­space tools and cur­rent paper­work into two cat­e­gories: what should be within arm’s reach and what shouldn’t. Right now, as you sit at your desk, con­sider every sin­gle item that you can reach out and touch. Is there any­thing you use less than a few times a week? Get it out of your way. (Hint: If it’s dusty, it doesn’t need to be there.) Is there any­thing you use often that’s not right nearby? Relo­cate it to the space right in front of you. For exam­ple, if you rarely use the hole punch, store it in the office sup­plies drawer. If you’re always jot­ting things down, a fresh notepad and uncapped pen should be next to your mouse pad.

Set up a land­ing strip. Every day you arrive in work­space with the same items — a cell phone, brief­case and/or purse, mail, keys, change. Make a “land­ing strip” where you can drop your stuff when you come in and out (maybe with an extra cell phone charger and change cup). If incom­ing paper­work or mail makes its way to your desk or chair each day, use an inbox to “catch” it. Clear out this inbox and file, recy­cle, or oth­er­wise process every­thing in it every day.

Store related items together. Reduce the amount of time you spend hunt­ing for tools by group­ing items by task. Keep the stamps near your envelopes, pens near notepads, fresh fold­ers near the fil­ing cab­i­net, ink near the printer, shred­der near the recy­cling bin, and so on. This is the most obvi­ous piece of orga­niz­ing advice in the world — until you’ve got a let­ter to mail and can’t find the stamps.

Make your­self com­fort­able. You spend the major­ity of your wak­ing hours in your work­space, so it’s worth invest­ing in a comfy chair and desk at the right height, a mouse and key­board that’s easy on your hands and wrists, and even a widescreen mon­i­tor (or two) to make long hours at the com­puter gen­tler on your eyes and bod­ies. Beware of fancy office prod­ucts that claim to be more ergonomic than oth­ers; your gauge is your body.

Pay atten­tion to the way you work and adjust as needed. After your ini­tial reor­ga­ni­za­tion, keep an eye out for recur­ring tasks you can do more effi­ciently in your work­space. If you often need space to spread out paper­work, get a key­board drawer or L-shaped desk that gives you that room. If you have a lap­top you take with you, get your­self an extra power cord or dock for easy plug­ging and unplug­ging. If you refer to paper­work while you type, get your­self a monitor-mounted doc­u­ment clip. One right-handed uni­ver­sity dean told me that she taught her­self to mouse with her left hand so she could jot notes at the same time with her right. Some of the most effec­tive (but less obvi­ous) tweaks you can make in your work­space depend on your work style and needs.