The Organized Desk & Productivity
Posted on June 14, 2018
Experts say how well your desk is organized can help set the tone and productivity level at work
The difference between an organized and tidy workspace compared to the disorganized one just doesn’t compare. A cluttered workspace just simply feels tight and claustrophobic. The ability to spread out your workload with all your tools within reach and able to be grabbed without a second thought is such a simple luxury. This thought extends to a lifestyle as well. A cluttered living space spreads to clutter in other areas of your life as well. There comes a simple beauty from an organized space.
Sitting down to start a project in a cluttered desk feels like working between a rock and a hard place. No room to work - no room to breathe. Contrast it to sitting down at a desk that just has the open real estate to spread out. A working space where your tools and utensils are within reach and you know exactly where everything is you don’t have to think about it. Having to stop to think about where you put that eraser or that particular pen might lose a train a thought that you wanted to keep flowing. Not to mention clean workspace just feels good to sit down to.
Organization simply makes your time more efficient. Organization leads to efficiency and productivity. Staying organized is a skill and discipline that you can develop and train over time. Over the years I’ve made some pretty big strides, though I still have lots of room for improvement. Organized and productive people are a result from effective habits and discipline.
Personally I’m what you would call a “reformed” messy person. Disorganized and messy, but I would justify it because I would know “where everything is”. Disorganized organization. Messes would lead to procrastination. Over time I’ve learned to realize that the way I was doing things was terribly inefficient. I’ve adopted a mindset of minimalism in many aspects of my life and both my physical and mental space has been greatly improved.
I’ve personally struggled with this a lot growing up. A former procrastinator. I’ve learned to manage this over the years and find a balance. I’ve learned that my longer term goals and accomplishments are much more important to me then procrastinating my time. Instant gratification feels good in the moment, but it’s very temporary and will more often then not will leave you feeling empty - especially if it’s chosen instead of a goal that you truly desire?
So how do we get ourselves out of this habit? It’s gonna be difficult. With anything difficult it comes from habit and discipline. Starting small and working on your habits to build and improve your skills at this one small step at a time. Here are some things I do personally to improve my organizational skills.
- Start your day off my doing something simple that can put you into the right mindset. Making the bed or doing some pushups or something. Personally I take the time to make myself a great cup of coffee. Grinding the beans in the morning just a cathartic and reflective period I really enjoy having in the morning. Boiling the water to exactly 195F and pressing the brew through my aero-press to have the perfect cup for me is just so amazingly satisfying. It really starts my day off in the right mood and mindset.
- Keep a journal or task manager. I keep a bullet journal where I set my tasks for the day or plans or whatever’s on my mind. In it I’ve broken down my long term goals into a plan, and broken that plan into tasks, and listed those tasks into a daily calendar. Tasks can be as simple as “do the laundry today” or “make the bed” but checking that task off can be addicting and instantly gratifying. Once I check off one task it makes it much easier to check off more. Here you can read in more detail about the agenda/journalling system I use.
- Learn from your weaknesses and make them into strengths. Anything you want to cultivate for yourself can be broken up into steps - and each step can be taken as small as you want. When you finish a task reward yourself with something you enjoy. Let’s say you want to read through a dry textbook book: break up the book into tiny tasks like “read five pages today” and reward yourself with something, whatever you like, after you accomplish it. It makes it so much easier to keep going after you start. A task like “read ten chapters today” feels like an insurmountable task, but “read five pages today” is certainly manageable. Once you start you’ll want to keep going!
At first having to implement all this stuff into my life felt like an effort but as the days go by it does become like second nature. I’ve made great strides to improvements in terms of organization and productivity, but like in all other aspects of my life there is still much room for improvement.