When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures

When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.

George Bernard Shaw

Productivity Tip – Keep a Clean Office

By David Reed, President of Remote Office Consulting, LLC

One of the challenges to working from home is keeping a tidy and organized workspace.  Most people who work in a traditional office setting are encouraged to keep their office or cubical clean to avoid negative comments from their co-workers.  When you work out of your home, you could let things slide in this area without others knowing that your office is a mess.

I know from personal experience that when I get very busy and am on the road a lot, I tend to come home from a trip, unload my bag, stack things in a pile on my desk or credenza, and reload for the next trip.  If I don’t take time to go through the piles and put things in their proper place, it will get out of hand quickly.

What is the impact of a messy office?  For most people, it is a decrease in productivity.  It could be a result of not being able to find something quickly, or just the feeling that things are out of control.

So what should you do if this is a challenge in your office?

1. Create an organized filing system.  If you have the room in your home office for filing cabinets, purchase them and create a system to organize your information.  My wife is an organizational wonder and has set up my system with color-coded folders representing different aspects of my business.

2. Pick a day of the week when you spend some time going through any piles that have accumulated.  I usually do this on the weekend or during the week if I find myself in an unproductive mindset.  Place things in their correct file or toss in the trash can if it is not necessary to retain a paper copy.
3. Depending on the filing capacity in your office, take time once a quarter or at least annually to go through your files and move contents that you do not need at your fingertips to a storage room or a file cabinet in the garage.  One of the common reasons things stack up on your desk is if you can’t easily place items in a file.  If it is too full, you will stop using the filing system.

4. Try to move towards an electronic filing system.  I have implemented document management systems for several of my clients, and the number one challenge we face is getting people to give up the perceived need to print everything.  For many, this is a holdover from days when computer systems were not as reliable as they are today.  There are exceptions, but it is rare to lose documents that are stored on a computer.  It is still recommended that you have a regular backup process to protect against the small chance of a computer failure.  Stop printing everything, only to drop it in a paper file!

5. Limit eating in your office.  Meals are usually a good time to take a break and move to the kitchen or another part of the house.  This will keep the office smelling better.

If you follow the above steps, you are guaranteed to have a higher level of productivity when working in your home office.  Working in a messy office will impact your self-image and make it harder for you to reach your potential each day.

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