Businesses today are continually trying to understand how they can increase productivity. Many have not realized that paper and office clutter is one of the biggest causes of inefficiency.
Research has shown that a clean and organized work environment boosts productivity. However, many businesses often feel they do not have the time to devote to cleaning house.
A cluttered workplace interferes with your group’s effectiveness and efficiency. When files are not easily accessible, employees will lose precious time trying to locate them.
Not using time effectively is a source of frustration for employees and managers. Frustration leads to stress, which then leads to poor work performance.
There is a simple solution to avoiding poor productivity and frustration – lose the clutter.
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How can you reduce the clutter in the office?
You don’t have to do it all at once if time is not on your side. You can follow a few easy steps to meet your goals.
Start with a weekly plan
Every week, make it your mission to set aside time to organize your files, and any relevant documents you may need throughout the week. You can decide if it is more productive for you to take that time at the end of the week and set yourself up for success before you even step foot in the office Monday morning.
Or maybe it works better for you to start each week by spending the first few hours, when you are freshest, to clear the decks and get things in their right place.
Leave your desk the way you want to find it
Always leave your office the way you want to find it when you return. Unless you thrive on chaos, leave your workspace neat and organized, so it is very apparent what you should begin working on first.
Items that you use frequently should be posted in a visible spot or stored within easy reach. Items used infrequently should be stored where they are out of the way, but easily accessible when needed.
Limit the personal stuff that you have in your work area
Personal items are a great way to make your workplace feel more like home.
However, if those special items get moved every time you need to access a file or get knocked over every time you turn your chair, there is a problem. Needing to reposition items continually is a waste of time, which leads to that frustration and work stress mentioned earlier.
Eliminate some of the personal clutter, and you are just that much closer to being more productive.
Sort your files
Go through your files to determine which are the most important and the least important. Label your files according to how impactful they are.
It seems like every task is always urgent — decide which ones, when complete, will get you the most progress towards your goals.
Use colors to define those that are more important than others. Keep the crucial files in a visible location.
As you sort through the files, you may find some that are not needed or not in use. These infrequently used files should be stored out of the way so as not to create any physical or visual clutter.
Maintain the system that you have developed
Once you have established an organizing routine, stick with it. It makes no sense to get everything organized, only to end up right back where you started a few weeks or months later.
What more can you do?
Keeping a clean work environment takes effort. Paper files may make it seem like the clutter is unavoidable because the documents just keep coming.
Your business is required by law to keep copies of certain documents. And we all know that the second we throw something away, we will end up wishing we hadn’t.
Continuing to set aside more and more space for paper files is not a permanent answer. A digital scanning service can provide a solution for storing all your copies in one place.
Benefits of using digital files
In a time when more and more documents originate as digital files, you may want to consider storing them permanently there as well. Some great benefits come with using digital files as opposed to paper.
Documents will remain safe
What is written on paper lasts longer! While there is some truth to this, unforeseen incidents can cause you to lose your documents.
Incidents like fire, flood, or storm damage are often unavoidable. Even if you do maintain a physical hard copy, you should back up your documents electronically.
This way, a digital backup copy, stored off-site, will always be available.
Space savings
If your company has been in business for some time, you have undoubtedly accumulated a lot of files over the years. You can downsize the amount of space those files occupy by transferring all your documents onto electronic storage devices.
A 1GB flash drive could store hundreds of thousands of pages. Flash drives, these days, range in size from 1GB to over a TB. There is a storage device that is secure and spacious enough to store what you need in a digital format.
Having an eco-friendly office
Besides being good for your office productivity, using less paper is good for the environment. Less paper means cutting down fewer trees. Less paper means less trash going into the landfills.
Good for the office, good for the environment. It’s a win-win!
Easy access to documents
Going through tons of drawers and boxes and cabinets looking for the paperwork you need is not an easy task. It takes up time and energy better spent elsewhere. And the worst-case scenario, you may still end up not finding your files.
Materials digitally scanned are easily indexed, allowing you to locate any documents with some simple search terms. A few taps on a computer keyboard and your files are easily retrieved.
Clutter can lead to chaos and chaos to inefficiency. Reduce and even eliminate those productivity drainers by converting paper copies to digital scans.
Lose that clutter by calling in a digital scanning service. They would be happy to help.
About Carson Derrow
