How to arrange things on your desktop to be more productive

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

The workplace is a personal MCC. Performance depends on how rationally it is organized. We'll show you how to tidy up your desktop and be more productive.

In the West, there is a specialty "professional organizer". He helps clients clean up their rooms and offices, paper and electronic files, and develop a personalized scheduling system.

(Lisa Zaslow) is one such specialist.

Studies show that the average person loses an hour a day due to disorganization. At the same time, people are terribly annoyed when they cannot find something. But in order to put things in order, it takes much less time. Liza Zaslav

Here's how Lisa and other experts recommend organizing your workspace to maximize productivity.

Rule 1. Arrange everything correctly

The monitor should be at eye level and 43–45 cm away from you.

Place frequently used items, such as a phone or office supplies, on the side of your dominant hand. It is convenient: you do not need to drag out, dumping everything around.

Rule 2. Use stationery rationally

Do you really need 10 pens, a paper knife and a stapler every day? Keep only stationery on your desk that you use on a daily basis. Put the rest in a pencil case and put it on the table, or better somewhere far away.

Getting up from the table for a pencil or paper clip, you temporarily turn off your brain from the project you are working on. This will allow you to look at it from a new angle when you return. Amy Trager is a professional organizer based in Chicago

Another expert, (Andrew Mellen), emphasizes that it is better for employees to store office supplies in one place (a common chest of drawers or shelving), and not each in their own drawers.

Rule 3. Use sticky notes without fanaticism

It is not useful and not productive to cover the monitor with colored papers like a bulletin board.

When there are too many reminders, they are useless. Emmy Trager

Be moderate - only make sticky notes with important short-term reminders.

Rule 4. Do not overdo it with personal belongings

It is important to maintain a balance between professional and personal life in the workplace. It's difficult.

Family photos, holiday souvenirs and other pleasant little things warm the soul and cheer up during the working day. However, overly memorable things that evoke a storm of memories are too distracting.

The gaze slides over objects, and the brain processes information, even if we are not aware of it. Liza Zaslav

Keep no more than three personal items on your desktop.

Rule 5. Regulate "communication" with e-mail

Email is still. But it can hit productivity if constantly distracted by letters.

Life hacker and professional organizers: check your mail twice a day at certain times. The rest of the time should be busy with work.

Yes! And turn off notifications to avoid ruining the state of the thread.

Rule 6. Leave free space for paperwork

Sometimes the desktop is so busy that there is nowhere to sign or draw up a document by hand.

Have an unoccupied island on the right or left (depending on whether you are right-handed or left-handed). Not necessarily large - for paperwork, a 30 × 40 cm rectangle is enough.

Rule 7. Organize your workflows

Do not keep documents that are not relevant to your current job close at hand. Chaos ensues when the table is littered with papers on projects before last, past, present and future. To avoid this, experts recommend grouping documents into folders: