When you take a good look at your workspace right now, how does it look like to you? Perhaps, this scenario is all too familiar. Cluttered desks with papers and pens everywhere. An overflowing storage closet. Stacks of files, some of which may have still been from a year ago. If that’s how your workspace is looking like at the moment, then it’s not surprising how you may feel regularly stressed at work. Your cluttered and disorganized workspace is making your head and mind just as messy.
Unfortunately, for you and your team, those with messy workspaces are hurting your team’s efficiency and productivity. It’s so hard to focus on the task at hand for the day when you’re distracted by all the mess you’re facing. And, perhaps it’s also eating up a lot of your useful and productive time.
As if you need more convincing to keep your workspace organized by using the right tactics and supplementary equipment and accessories, like ProLock access-controlled lockers, here are key reasons how an organized workspace is able to boost team efficiency.
- It Makes Employees Happy
Happy employees are productive and efficient ones. When they arrive in the office, you’ll want your work premises to exude positivity. A disorganized workspace is, in no way, a contributor to positive emotions. In the opposite, it’s rather to cause stress.
Visual clutter is stressful. It takes away the peace and calmness you need for you to focus on your day-to-day responsibilities. Imagine how much of an annoyance it is for you to have to search through piles of messy paper to find your stapler buried amidst all those. At the end of busily looking through all that mess, you may start to get cranky.
This unhappiness and negativity can pass on to other workmates, especially those who are so close to your desk. Those negative feelings hurt productivity, as there’s very little inspiration and motivation to keep working.
Just think of it: isn’t it that you’d much prefer to spend a busy day of work in a clean environment than in a cluttered one?
- It Boosts Productivity
A team can never be efficient if it’s also not productive. Having a clean environment is, therefore, the key to having a more efficient and productive workplace. Why? The reason is simple—as soon as you report to work, you can start your day productively. You’re not wasting any time going through piles of paper, trying to look for a particular document.
You might argue that it’s only just a few minutes of searching through the pile of clutter on your desk. But, those few minutes are enough to break your chain of thought. Then, those few minutes in a day pile up, when you accumulate it weekly and monthly.
- It Improves Time Management
Poor time management is the top eater of efficiency. You’re never going to be an efficient organization if your time management skills are poor. Truth be told, the cluttered desk you’re facing is one of the reasons why your time management is so bad.
Why spend minutes going through mess simply to find a document or an office supply, when, in an organized setting, you’ll immediately know where to find it? As discussed earlier, those minutes wasted add up, which could’ve been a more productive period.
Then, when your train of thought is affected, it can often take a few more minutes before you’re able to set yourself back in the right direction to focus. This hurts your productivity and ability to maximize your time.
Remember that losing your focus isn’t only hurting your efficiency. Rather, it’s also affecting the quality of your work. You’re now more susceptible to committing errors, then that time you have to spend correcting errors is wasted time again.
- It Enables You To Keep An Accurate Record Of Inventory
Another facet of efficiency has to do with the use of office materials and supplies. When workstations are consistently well-organized, a better record of inventory is achieved. This means not making the mistake of ordering double supplies or any more than what’s needed, all because those supplies where hidden in a messy storage locker or drawer.
Businesses have to be efficient with every single aspect of their expenses. That way, the profit-earning capacity is increased when you don’t have to spend any more than what’s intended to be spent.
Conclusion
By now, you’d know that every business always has to strive to keep their premises clean. But, this doesn’t just pertain to the physical cleaning per se. This fact also refers to the clutter in each employee’s desk. No matter how clean the rest of your office is, those cluttered workstations are still not doing your business any good. If you want your business’s efficiency to improve, start with each workstation. Maintaining clean and organized stations might just be the solution your business needs.
