Your home is not the only space that needs a good spring cleaning! Many of us have experienced the insanity that comes from too much clutter, papers, projects and just plain junk all over our work space. One of the keys to your highest productivity is organization. So living a minimalist lifestyle at work can aid your organization efforts while also boosting your attitude and stress levels by removing emphasis from material possessions.
The first step to living minimally is to get from where you are now to a nice, clean workstation. This entails sorting through your desk contents and trashing the unnecessary items.
De-clutter your Workstation:
- Anything that no longer serves a useful purpose needs to be thrown away
- Tools that aren’t used by individuals every day, probably need to be stored in a central location (allows your company to own less of them too!)
- Organize and schedule regular times to clean out cabinets or drawers that tend to collect unnecessary items
- Use closed storage to its capacity so your open shelves and desk can appear more clean
To those of you that own or manage a business, creating a minimalistic office environment will boost your team’s effectiveness and attitudes. Common areas and copy rooms often get cluttered as well and need to be kept tidy. You don’t want your employees wasting time trying to find something in a mess, nor do you want to spend money on items that aren’t being used. Here are some tips:
- Schedule regular times to clean out the shared spaces (let everyone at the office know so they can make sure items they need don’t get thrown away)
- Ask employees to answer a questionnaire about what items they feel help them accomplish their job the most (there may be items you thought were being used that really aren’t)
- Keep break rooms tidy to help employees truly get a break from their work
Along with physical simplicity, mental health will also enhance your work environment. Keeping stress free minds will help relationships, creativity, teamwork, optimism and overall attitudes. Here are some tips to encourage refreshed minds at work:
- Post inspirational messages to encourage the best out of your team, and fellow coworkers; we all have so many things going on in our lives outside of work and it is important to encourage each other to be our best in every element of our lives
- Encourage generosity
- Maybe volunteer together on some weekends, raise money for something in your community, or participate in a fundraiser
- Encourage employees to care for their health
- You can provide enough time for them to exercise during the day or make healthy snacks available to them
- Provide employees (or purchase yourself) tools to help you stay as organized as possible, this will cut down on stress
- Leaders should set good examples of valuing human interaction, time management, and a healthy lifestyle
- Award employees with something other than physical awards, plaques etc. (things that don’t clutter their work space or emphasize the important of physical posessions)
When purchasing new furniture, keep in mind that closed storage units are going to give you the most simplistic look. The more open shelves, bookcases and surfaces with no storage, the more cluttered a space is going to look. There are also many unique storage units that can be integrated into desks for printers, chargers, cords, computers so make sure you ask about them during the designing phase.
Remember, Less is truly more!
Happy Designing!
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