What do your desk and company look like? Every office is different, of course. Creative companies, for example, may have a more artistic approach to their desks and offices, too. Manufacturing companies are completely different, with production facilities and more straightforward offices. Those, in turn, differ from a less-creative office environment.
No matter what your service or product, though, every employee has a different approach to their individual workspace. Some people take a pretty rigorous approach to their desk and filing. They never suffer from lack of work surface—because their desks are always clean. But if you fall into a slightly different camp, that’s OK—up to a point.
Unfortunately, an extremely messy desk may wreak havoc on more than your lack of work surface. You may suffer from decreased productivity and reduced creativity, too. You may waste time as you struggle to find what you need in order to complete a project or meet a deadline. And it may just reflect badly on you, too.
Related: Are You Happy at Work?
If you’re worried about losing time to cleaning your desk, that’s understandable. But you can master a desk-cleaning routine that takes you just a few minutes—five, in fact—every day. And when you do that, you can take advantage of all the benefits and rewards.
Of course, it helps to start with a clean workspace, and that may take some time to catch up. But that’s OK; separate your desk piles into different boxes, such as recycle, donate, or discard. Then you have to think about how you work. Do you need a spot to stash papers until you get to them? That’s OK—get the supplies that you need to manage those items. What else do you need for that clean desk routine? This graphic explains it.
