5 Top Tips to De-clutter Your Workspace and Get Back to Business

Clutter is anything that prevents you from achieving your goals, learning new skills, and getting your job done. Follow these five tips and get your clutter under control.

If you’re drowning in clutter, it’s easy to be overwhelmed. Don’t go there. Clutter makes you less productive, but it’s not a reflection of your character. With a little concentration and some hard work, you can fix your clutter problem. We’ve put together five tips to finally get your mess under control. 

1. Monthly Review

Schedule a monthly review of your paper and digital files. And don’t just think about doing it—actually do it! Pick a date and mark it on your calendar to make this procedure a regular part of your workweek. Review everything in your inbox, on top of your desk, and in your smartphone. Get rid of any files and documents you no longer need. File or scan and save documents that matter.

2. Daily Clean Up

Pick a time at the beginning or end of your day for a 5-minute review of your workspace. Go through your inbox, review paperwork on your desk, and identify any items you can resolve with immediate action. If there are items that you can recycle or file, then take care of them right away.

3. A Place for Everything

Get familiar with the items in your workspace and how often you need them.  Make sure that your tools have a place to call home and that they don’t migrate around during the week. To work efficiently, you need to be able to reach your supplies easily; make sure that all your most frequently used supplies are close at hand.

4. Know Your Problem Areas

It’s great to keep personal knick-knacks on your desk—family photos, Star Wars action figures, or snow globes from all of your vacation—but if your collectibles get in the way of getting things done, then it’s time to reduce your collection. Also, be aware that this kind of clutter may send the wrong message to supervisors–it could tell them that you’re not the serious person they’re looking for to advance in their company. Have a friend or colleague take a look at your workspace and ask them what they think it says about you.

5. Independence Day

Schedule one day per quarter to go through all of the drawers, file cabinets, and storage areas in your workspace and clean them out, one at a time. Have a roll of paper towels and some spray cleaning fluid on hand. You’re going to empty every drawer and wash it out. This task will force you to decide whether to keep, recycle, or discard the items you find. Clean and wash your work surfaces. When you are finished, you will finally have a clean place to work, and that will motivate you to keep your workspace free of clutter.

How do you keep your workspace free of clutter? We want to know your secrets to staying organized and maintaining order with your print and digital files. Please comment here, share your tips on Twitter, and follow us @Cydcor. Invite your friends and colleagues to participate in this discussion so we can learn to do better together.

We are Cydcor, the recognized leader in outsourced sales services. From our humble beginnings as an independent sales company based in Canada to garnering a reputation as the global leader in outsourced sales, Cydcor has come a long way. We’ve done this by having exceptional sales professionals and providing our clients with proven sales and marketing strategies that get results.