What would you say if you were told that a secret-sauce ingredient to make you 10x more productive at work was available? You’d be all over it, right? Of course you would.
Consider this your lucky day! We’ve put together 10 things that will help when you’re wondering how to get organized at work. Let’s get to it
1. Time to Purge
Your work environment is 100% tied to the amount of productivity you are capable of producing. If you’ve got anything and everything piled on your desk, there’s no way you’re going to get anything done.
If you haven’t used it in the past week, either throw it away or put it in storage. When decorating your desk, it’s best to live by the rule that your desk should be 50% full to avoid leaving the desking feeling cold, clinical and uninspiring.
2. Make it Personal
Once everything unnecessary has been removed from your desk, it’s time to add some flair to your workspace! Invest in your own personal office supplies and label them.
While this might be a small step, having your own personal supplies will give you a sense of ownership of your space.
3. Planning Makes Perfect
Time management is a huge indicator of productivity in the workplace. If you don’t have a structure of what your day is going to look like, you could very easily end up giving one task too much time and attention (or falling down the Youtube black hole, watching cat videos for hours).
Avoid this by giving yourself a time limit for each activity and assignment. Being able to schedule like a boss will incentivize you to get things done in an effective and timely manner.
4. Organize Your E-Life
It is overwhelmingly easy to let emails and e-files quickly pile up on your desktop. This creates chaos in your work atmosphere and dilutes any opportunity for productivity.
Whenever you get emails, deal with them instead of ignoring them. Dealing with your emails, little by little, will reduce your notifications you receive, thus reducing assumed stress. Create a filing system to organize your files, instead of letting them clutter up your desktop.
5. Take Five!
Think back to your college days when you had to be incredibly productive in an usually short amount of time. How did you do it?
There are several studies that recommend that studying or working for an allotted amount of time with a scheduled break after increase overall productivity.
This theory aligns with productivity in the workspace as well! When you’re wondering how to get organized at work, remember to take a break and give yourself a mental reset. Get up, walk around, eat a snack. Rest and refresh before getting back to work!
6. Avoid Doing Everything
While multitasking can be seen as a strength, in some cases it can be seen as a disadvantage. Splitting your attention between several tasks at once can result in a lack of diligent focus. This scatter-brained approach to tasks can strain your ability to complete one task well by attempting to complete several tasks half-done.
This is also a recipe for forgetting about certain tasks that you started but never finished. Taking on all your priorities at once often means turning in work late or forgetting to turn things in at all.
At the beginning of the day create a timeline of tasks in the order of priority. Take each task one-at-a-time and focus completely on that task. This focused approach will help you get things done quicker and more effectively.
7. Don’t Forget Your ZZZ’s
You’ve got deadlines, assignments and responsibilities at work. It’s easy to let these responsibilities stress you out and keep you up at night, thus compromising your sleep schedule.
If you go to work the next day tired and groggy, a decrease in productivity is inevitable. Your focus will be skewed and your responsibilities will quickly pile up in front of you.
The RAND Corporation did a study that showed that the U.S. loses a haunting $411 billion dollars per year from lack of productivity, due to insufficient sleep.
8. How to Get Organized At Work with Excercise
You probably already knew that working out is beneficial to your overall health, but did you know that it could help boost your productivity and organization at work? Well, it could!
Working out before you start work, or even on your lunch break, is a great way to get the blood circulating to the brain. This will increase your alertness and accuracy in your daily tasks.
You don’t have to be a gym rat to do well at your job. Livestrong.com says that if you can’t get a full cardio session in for the day, going for a walk during lunch or taking the stairs instead of the elevator would benefit your energy levels.
9. End the Day Well
After being at work for 8 hours, you’re tired and ready to go home, put your feet up, meal prep and binge your current Netflix obsession. Who could blame you?
Before you clock out, take a look at your workspace. Does it look like a tornado just hit it? Yes? Take five minutes to re-organize your area. Throw away your scrap paper, close all the tabs on your desktop and reset your area.
Coming into the office tomorrow won’t be as stressful if your area is clean and ready for a new day of conquering your to-do list.
10. Recognize, Accept and Own Your Differences
While learning how to get organized at work, it is important to acknowledge your organizational preferences will be different than your coworkers.
Your spaces will look different than there’s, your filing method might be different and the way you make your workspace comfortable will most likely be different than there’s.
That is completely natural and okay.
The main reason why you clicked on this article and why you want to learn how to get organized at work is that you value your job. You are dedicated to doing and giving your best at your place of work.
That means that you need to do what works best for you. In this process, individualization is a great asset.
Conclusion
So there you have it! The secret sauce of how to get organized at work. While some of these steps are practical and tangible, some are also mental. Organization is a mindset that you’re capable of bringing into your workplace every day.
If you incorporate these steps into your daily routine, you’ll quickly notice how organized you feel at work. You might even notice the stress of your inevitable deadlines melt away.
You’ll have to try these tips out to see!