The office is often the place you spend the most time, so whether it’s your desk or your whole department, it’s important to keep it working for you.
Doing this means spending time decluttering, organising and ensuring the place is a pleasant place to work in and a place your clients would want to visit.
After all, we all swoon after dream offices, so let’s make the best of what we’ve got with some basic advice from those that know best.
If you haven’t been caught up in the tidying and organisational revolution that has blown up since Marie Kondo’s Tidying Up hit our Netflix accounts on New Year’s Day, you’re one of only a few that is missing out!
Marie Kondo is a tidying expert, best-selling author and now star of her own Netflix series, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, she has initiated the KonMari Method - the art of tidying up by category, not location.
Marie’s method recommends focusing on only keeping the items that “spark joy” and thanking those that don’t before discarding them.
This may sound easier with the home, but it is a method you can apply to some extent in the workplace and important to do at least once a year - why not try the KonMari Method in place of your annual spring clean or office clear out?
The KonMari Method
Broken into four categories, the KonMari Method is rolled out by:
- Clothing
- Books and Papers
- Komono (misc. items)
- Sentimental Items
Of course, you are unlikely to have clothing scattered around your office, and other than perhaps a photo frame, many sentimental items, however you can apply Marie’s other tidying tips to improving your workspace.
“Gather your items in one place to get an accurate grasp of what you have.”
By seeing everything in front of you, Marie’s tip helps tidiers really understand just how much “stuff” they have.
Start by emptying your desk drawers or office cabinets and take stock of everything you have. Do you really need it all? Stationery cupboards are often unnecessarily overstocked - why not donate to a children’s group or local school?
“Choose what you want to keep, not what you want to get rid of.”
Marie’s key phrase is “spark joy”. This is an odd concept, but it follows the belief that we all have too much stuff that we just don’t care about, think much of or use that often.
Rather than approaching the tidy up as an opportunity to ‘get rid’ of stuff, choose the items you absolutely need to fulfill your role at work. Then review the other things - do they need to be kept or is it available electronically? Do you need as many pens or files that you have cluttering your personal workspace? Can they be stored for others to use or binned if no longer relevant?
“Don’t compare your performance to that of anyone else. You are the standard.”
Everyone has a different idea of what “sparks joy”, as well as what “tidy and organised” looks like - Marie is, basically, advising you not to be a sheep!
You do you! It’s up to you to keep your own personal space tidy and organised, don’t be distracted what someone else is doing and don’t follow another’s method of tidying if it doesn’t work for you.
It’s also best to focus on one category at a time with the KonMari Method, in the workplace we adapt this to focus on one area at a time, if you’re tackling a wider space than just your desk.
Why not dedicate a time to organising your computer files in the same method? Dump all of your files on the desktop and create a filing system that works best, deleting the files and folders no longer relevant.
