Last week in our series on how to be more productive at work, we talked about honouring our body's natural biorhythms in the day for increased concentration (if you missed it, read it here). Today we are looking at decluttering as a direct productivity booster.
2: Messy bed, messy head
Our environment plays a subtle but influential role in our productivity levels. There is a phrase I love that sums this up perfectly: "Messy head, messy bed". I'm not sure who said it first but it's spot on. The more our environment is cluttered up with stuff we don't need, or use, or has outlived its purpose, or is a chore waiting to be tackled, or is broken, or surplus to requirements, the more energy is sucked away from what we really want to be focusing on.
I am not sure what the equivalent is for the office "Messy desk, messy ..." (answers on the back of a postcard please. Almost nothing rhymes with desk it would appear - yes I checked - and messy desk, messy burlesque makes no sense). You get the idea though. Having piles of paperwork, journals, coffee cups, reports to go through and endless tasks crying out for attention in your eyeline suck the productivity energy right out of you. It's far harder to be motivated to start something when you are looking at a mountain of things to do, than if you have a clean, orderly environment and can clearly see the wood for the trees. One of the fastest ways to up your motivation and boost your productivity is to have a ruthless declutter in you work environment (whatever kind of environment that is). Stop. Clear the decks. Throw away as much as you can. File what you need to. Wipe things clean. This will allow you to identify your priorities with much greater clarity and speed, and get so much more done.
