Today, January 9, marked the day when many people bid farewell to their leave and started a new year of work.
It is also ‘Clean Off Your Desk Day’.
The day heralds the beginning of some serious spring cleaning at work, and encourages workers to de-clutter and reorganise their work space as they start their new year in the office.
When spring cleaning your work space ask yourself; “Do you really need all that junk and old paperwork on your desk?”
Here are three helpful hints to cleaning your desk:
- Part with your papers
Sometimes it seems like papers on your desk multiply overnight, and it doesn’t take long for them to overtake your work space. That’s why it’s important to try to organise them as you get them. This may mean creating a filing system where you can put the papers away depending on their importance or subject.
- Keep some distance from your stuff
Many professional organisers suggest only keeping your most important items within arm’s reach; so anything you need to use on a daily basis. This may include your computer monitor, keyboard and mouse, phone, etc. Anything you don’t use all of the time, maybe your stapler or tape, should be put away in a drawer to help reduce the clutter on your desk.
- De-clutter your digital desktop
Sometimes we just focus on cleaning up the physical work space in front of us, and then we sit down in front of a digital disaster. You’ll want to take some time to clean your computer desktop and email inbox too. Cleaning your desktop and filing things away in an orderly fashion, will make things easy to find at a second’s notice, and emptying your inbox can actually take a big weight off your shoulders.
There are many things you can do to keep your work space clean and tidy.
Not only will this help you be more productive it should make you feel less stressed too.