Efficiency experts cite a lack of office space organization as the leading cause of lost productivity in the United States. A disorganized office may cause a business to lose valuable hours searching for files and missing correspondence. Disorganization also diverts employees’ attention away from important tasks and the business’s goals. As a result, customers may view your company as unprofessional and avoid doing business with you. Avoid clutter-related perils by following these simple steps to get your workplace into shape.
Identify Your Organizational Obstacles
Every company has a unique set of logistical challenges that may go unnoticed since they are present every day. To get on track, hire a professional organizing consultant to identify problem areas or – if that’s cost prohibitive – any outsider, such as your spouse, a friend or even your mother, can provide a fresh eye. If that’s not possible, take photos. Get away from the office, load the images on your computer, blow them up and scrutinize them with your own critical eye. Problem areas will pop right out at you.
Learn to Purge
We tend to hoard clutter, even in the office, due to poor time management, which causes us to put off making decisions about organizing or throwing things away until we’re forced to do so. But, decluttering experts abide by one simple rule: it all has to go. If you have documents and other materials that must be kept for business reasons, pay for off-site storage or have all such items converted into electronic formats, which can be kept forever and take up no space in your office. An old trick is to take everything off desks and out of drawers, and place it in boxes. Move the boxes to a corner in the office, out of easy reach. If you really need something, go get it and assign it “a home” in the main work area. At the end of two weeks, send anything you haven’t retrieved from the boxes to the trash or to storage.
You Aren’t Quite Done Yet
A significant downside to clutter is that it’s impossible to thoroughly clean a messy space. So once you’ve banished your office clutter to a more efficient place, you’ll find an embarrassing amount of dirt, crumbs and general gunk in its place. Call your local commercial cleaning contractor to clean your office thoroughly. This way, your staff can start fresh and benefit from a productivity-enhancing environment that’s clean and energizing.
