Handling Office Clutter
My previous blog post was about office noise and one way of escaping it. Besides the chatter, there is also the clutter to be dealt with.
Office clutter, whether physical or electronic, can be very distracting, and at best unsightly. Whether you are the source of the clutter or not, the more you control it, the more efficient your work is likely to be. Overflowing paper and e-mail can be a sign of disorganization, and though they may take time to sort out on a regular basis, the time saved later, for better productivity, is worth it. In fact, an organized office not only saves time, it also saves face. As Don Aslett, author of The Office Clutter Cure puts it, “Your desk is you.”
Reducing initial use of paper and/or saving only electronic copies of paper documents is definitely one way of reducing clutter. Let’s face it: old documents that have long been dealt with belong in the recycling bin, not on desks or in the corridor outside. Clicking “Save” should be given priority over clicking “Print”, and proper filing should replace hoarding. This can be combined with making sure that one’s desk contains only the material pertinent to the work currently at hand.
E-mail and electronic files need sorting on a regular basis. Old useless documents should be deleted and important ones arranged into clearly labelled folders and subfolders. If you’re afraid of losing these documents, keep multiple copies for backup, and never place important office documents on a personal computer that is virus-prone. Always update your anti-virus. Even workplace computers aren’t perfect; for example, if you are a teacher, your usb may be affected by a virus picked up from a classroom computer, which might then affect an office computer, etc., hence the need for more than one backup: backups may be affected simultaneously, in a sort of chain reaction, so try to keep at least one of them properly secured and relatively out of reach.
It may be argued that an organized office is a purely personal matter or a matter of keeping up appearances, but it is partly a professional matter and could be more public than you think. Besides wasted time, disorganization may lead to missed deadlines and meeting tardiness. Besides, your office may give an impression not just about you personally, but also about your organization and how you work. It might additionally affect neighboring offices depending on the situation.
It may also be a cultural matter, and correct me if I’m wrong, that in some workplaces people like to physically display their work because, if they don’t, the perception may be that it doesn’t exist: a relatively empty office, no matter how neat, is not as convincing as one with piles of paper here and there – right? Some even go as far as citing Albert Einstein on this: "If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, what's an empty desk a sign of?"
If Einstein had envisioned our digital age, wouldn’t he have phrased his statement differently?
Posted by May Mikati on 03 September 2011, 7:13 PM
My previous blog post was about office noise and one way of escaping it. Besides the chatter, there is also the clutter to be dealt with.
Office clutter, whether physical or electronic, can be very distracting, and at best unsightly. Whether you are the source of the clutter or not, the more you control it, the more efficient your work is likely to be. Overflowing paper and e-mail can be a sign of disorganization, and though they may take time to sort out on a regular basis, the time saved later, for better productivity, is worth it. In fact, an organized office not only saves time, it also saves face. As Don Aslett, author of The Office Clutter Cure puts it, “Your desk is you.”
Reducing initial use of paper and/or saving only electronic copies of paper documents is definitely one way of reducing clutter. Let’s face it: old documents that have long been dealt with belong in the recycling bin, not on desks or in the corridor outside. Clicking “Save” should be given priority over clicking “Print”, and proper filing should replace hoarding. This can be combined with making sure that one’s desk contains only the material pertinent to the work currently at hand.
E-mail and electronic files need sorting on a regular basis. Old useless documents should be deleted and important ones arranged into clearly labelled folders and subfolders. If you’re afraid of losing these documents, keep multiple copies for backup, and never place important office documents on a personal computer that is virus-prone. Always update your anti-virus. Even workplace computers aren’t perfect; for example, if you are a teacher, your usb may be affected by a virus picked up from a classroom computer, which might then affect an office computer, etc., hence the need for more than one backup: backups may be affected simultaneously, in a sort of chain reaction, so try to keep at least one of them properly secured and relatively out of reach.
It may be argued that an organized office is a purely personal matter or a matter of keeping up appearances, but it is partly a professional matter and could be more public than you think. Besides wasted time, disorganization may lead to missed deadlines and meeting tardiness. Besides, your office may give an impression not just about you personally, but also about your organization and how you work. It might additionally affect neighboring offices depending on the situation.
It may also be a cultural matter, and correct me if I’m wrong, that in some workplaces people like to physically display their work because, if they don’t, the perception may be that it doesn’t exist: a relatively empty office, no matter how neat, is not as convincing as one with piles of paper here and there – right? Some even go as far as citing Albert Einstein on this: "If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, what's an empty desk a sign of?"
If Einstein had envisioned our digital age, wouldn’t he have phrased his statement differently?
Posted by May Mikati on 03 September 2011, 7:13 PM
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