Table of Contents
There is often an unnoticed weight that papers bring to an office.
The weight of an untidy desk, a pile of reports that were never read, papers that are kept ‘just in case,’ and ultimately never looked at again.
When papers are physically present in a workplace, they often have an unnoticed impact on a person’s productivity.
But our brains notice.
For the past several years, as a consultant, I have worked in many offices, all of varying sizes, and most of varying levels of organization.
From offices with very few employees, where each person has their own workspace, to large shared offices with many employees and very few workstations, I have seen firsthand the positive and negative impacts a workspace can have on employees.
Whether a workspace is productive or not greatly impacts how employees feel, their stress levels, and their ability to focus on the tasks at hand.
This, in turn, affects how work gets done and overall success.
The Cognitive Load of Physical Mess
Think back to a time when you were in deep focus.
You’re working on a project, you’ve taken all of the necessary steps to remove any distractions from your workflow, and you’re making great progress on the task at hand.
Suddenly, someone walks by and flips through a stack of papers on their desk.
What happens to you? Your focus is disrupted.
Chances are that you’re not immediately returned to the task at hand. Instead, you are forced to refocus on the task at hand and expend a great deal of mental energy to get back to where you were previously. In effect, your brain is dealing with a physical distraction that is removing a great deal of value from your day.
Think about the last time you had to search through a pile of papers to find a contract or an invoice that you needed.
How long did it take to find that?
And how did that make you feel while you were searching for it?
I know that for me, it makes me frustrated and angry.
And most of all, it breaks my concentration and prevents me from focusing on my work.
I am sure that if I had a clean workspace, I would be able to focus better and complete my work faster.
The momentum you had is gone.
Another thing physical disorganization of space does is create anxiety. A cluttered workspace is a visual sign that one has too much work to complete.
And no employee likes to walk into work already behind.
Thus, an organization of space and materials not only increases focus on work but also helps an employee’s mind complete the best work possible.
Streamlining Your Environment for Clarity
To build a productive workspace, organizations must move past the habit of simply moving paper from one pile to another.
The paper must be organized in a way that systematically reduces the amount of physical data that an organization holds.
This means that organizations must adopt a lifecycle for their physical documentation.
This means that some documents will no longer be needed after a certain period and should be destroyed to reduce clutter.
A modern workplace organizes its physical media in a lifecycle: as long as a document is active, it will be needed at your desk; once it is no longer active, it can be archived digitally.
The physical original of a digitized document should be destroyed securely as well.
But how do you handle this at scale?
In very busy economic hubs, it is crucial for an organization’s ability to remain productive and efficiently manage physical media in its workspace. In the time it takes to sort through boxes and papers, employees could be focused on growing the business and generating revenue.
By hiring a professional service for document shredding in San Jose, businesses can efficiently sort through and dispose of physical media within their organizations.
This will not only help keep their physical workspace organized but also help keep their organization’s data safe from potential security breaches.
The Security Angle of Clean Spaces
Of course, there is also the security of documents and information, which is becoming increasingly important in today’s world.
And we almost always connect it to the digital version of information and cyberattacks. But physical documents can also pose a significant risk.
Imagine, for example, a very important document with sensitive information about a company, a CEO, or an employee left on an empty desk overnight.
The risk of such a document being lost, stolen, or even found by the wrong person is high. And it can cause significant trouble and even lead to serious consequences.
That is why it is so important to keep physical documents in order, to secure them properly, and to make sure that no document with sensitive information is ever left unattended.
So, what is the solution?
While having a clean desk might not be at the top of every employee’s wish list, a clean desk policy at work is one of the best ways to keep employees’ information safe from theft or damage.
If you keep a copy of a document that contains sensitive information with you at your desk, it’s only natural that at some point you’ll take your eyes off of it.
When that happens, sensitive information could be lost or stolen, causing serious problems for you and your company.
When would it be appropriate to keep a copy of a document at your desk?
If you’re currently using a copy of a document to complete a task at hand and that task needs to be completed daily, then it would be best to keep a copy of that document on your desk.
However, once that task is completed and the document is no longer needed daily, it should be destroyed to prevent sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands.
Creating Sustainable Workplace Habits
The key to creating a workspace that is organized and able to function at high levels is to create sustainable habits in the office and in each employee’s work habits that promote a clean workspace daily.
Make the One In, One Out Rule part of your company culture by ensuring that for every new physical file brought into the workspace, an old file the team no longer needs is archived or properly destroyed.
Set Aside Ten Minutes Daily: Dedicate the final moments of the workday to clearing off physical surfaces so you can walk into a clean space the next morning.
Establish Clear Destruction Protocols: Set up secure disposal containers and make them easily accessible to all employees in the office. Recycle or discard paper accordingly, making it a habit.
But it’s so much more than that. Cluttered offices give off a very different physical energy than a clear one.
And that energy can manifest itself in a whole host of ways that have a bearing on your ability to perform at work at a high level.
Not only will a clutter-free office increase communication and the accuracy of work, but it will also lift the fog from your eyes that can prevent you from being as productive as you’d like to be.
In short, a clutter-free office leads to higher levels of productivity.
So even though it may take some time to sort through the mess that may have developed in your office, the long-term benefits to your ability to be highly productive at work are well worth it.
