Anyone that has started his or her own business from home knows that you are under pressure to pay the bills and needs to get work and a lot of it as soon as possible.
The biggest problem we then make is to work on different projects at the same time and let all that work pile up on your desk, as you want to work on everything during a course of a day.
The faster the deadline looms, the more alert you become on the task at hand, and the more focused you are on this task, the more the concentration to other things goes out the window. Clutter takes over your desk and life with a multitude of mail (both read and unread), files, post-it notes, reminders, phone messages, and a rather large assortment of other odds and ends.
Will it be possible to get out of this self made mess? Yes you can and as it might sound impossible, it is just the other way around. A few simple steps will permit you to work in a clutter-free location with information at your fingertips, not in a mess of other papers.
Movable Storage
As you’ve convinced yourself that it is better to have all the information ready and at your fingertips on your desk before you know it, the sheer volume of paper and printouts is threatening to drown you. It is next to impossible to find anything on your desk at all. Is there a compromise? Well, yes there is! Your local office supply store will have a wide array of movable filing solutions. There are cardboard file boxes that can be put together at a moments notice. More durable solutions are the plastic file containers that come in many shapes and sizes. Another possibility is the rollaway file caddy that will house all your project files while you need them close by. Whatever you decide, it is imperative that you oppose the temptation of housing your projects files and folders on your desk.
Beware the Trap of Over-scheduling!
While focus on one project may be to blame for the buildup of some clutter, other accumulations may be blamed on spreading your self too thin for ease. Granted, today’s work environment is fast-paced and burden that you multi-task and go in many different directions at the same time. Nonetheless, a cluttered desk is oftentimes a good clue that you have too much going on at the same time. Perhaps you have not taken full advantage of the possibilities of delegating some of your tasks? Why not push some projects back or line them up one at a time. I am sure your clients will accept this if you are honest with them from the start. First come, first serve
Beef up on Communication, Delegation, and Management Style
There is nothing worse than a cluttered desk and it show a sign of poor management.. Believe it or not, the sign of a clever manager is one who will entrust important tasks to others. This suppose that you have a team of staff who are talented of handling the responsibilities you may wish to entrust to them, but in the long run it will free your desk from much of the clutter that is currently making it look to some extent unprofessional.
Don’t wave it off
Never believe yourself when you want to make it off as just part of you or worse that this is a good sign of the amount of work you have.. Nothing could be further from the truth! A cluttered desk is nothing more than a sign that will disappear once the root cause has been identified and dealt with. For example, once you become comfortable with your coworkers and learn to delegate responsibilities to the extent that your job description permits, you will find that big chunks of clutter will be gone. Similarly, when you refuse to keep every file on the top of your desk and instead use a movable storage system, you will soon find that only materials you are currently working on will actually take up your valuable space.
This type of mess can only disappear if you deal with it.. The biggest challenge in combating it, lies not with the actual moving of files from left to right and back again, but instead with the changing of procedures. Again, clutter is merely a indication. You may have some short term success in eradicating it, but unless you deal with the fundamental issues, it will come back.
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