You might not realise, but having a tidy desk can make a huge difference between you having a productive day at work and struggling to get your tasks done. Often, it can be perceived that a cluttered desk is reflective of a cluttered mind; a messy environment could not only have a negative impact on your working day, but think about the impression this could be having on potential clients and visitors to your office? A cluttered and unorganised office could set the wrong impression. Here we go through a few of the other benefits of having a tidy desk, and it’s so much more than increasing your productivity!

Tidy Desk, Tidy Mind

To amend that common phrase a little, a tidy desk can bring you a tidy mind, enabling you to be able to focus on the task at hand and do a better job. Research undertaken at Princeton University Neuroscience Institute shows that when your environment is cluttered, the chaos restricts your ability to focus, limiting your brain’s ability to process information. This could also lead to you being easily distracted and unable to process information as well as you could if your environment was uncluttered and organised.

A Weekly Clean

If your office environment has got a bit out of hand, it might be a good idea to organise a company-wide office tidy up, this might mean taking an afternoon out of your week and delving deep into the files that have been piling up on your desks, organising them and undertaking a good clean of the office. Once this initial deep clean has been done it will be much easier for you to keep on top of the office space, implementing a weekly clean where each member of staff takes 20 minutes to organise themselves and their desks before it becomes out of hand again, why not set a reoccurring reminder on your calendar to tidy up your workspace once a week?

It’s true that we are a nation of hoarders, but in an office environment there shouldn’t be much that you might feel emotionally attached to that can’t be stored digitally or discarded. If your filing cabinet is over flowing with files that you haven’t even looked at for over 2 years, do you really need them? Create a system whereby you are removing items that are unnecessary and unwanted, sticking to this will create a routine to ensure you are working in a decluttered environment.

Increase Productivity

As we’ve shown, a tidy desk will in turn give you a tidy mind, giving you much more opportunity to increase productivity and creativity throughout the business. Doing something as simple as keeping your desk clean and tidy can increase productivity significantly, helping to ensure your business moves in the right direction.

A Clean Desk Policy

There are a number of benefits of implementing a clean desk policy into your work environment, it helps to ensure that your employees are clearing their desks at the end of each day. This can help organisation reduce the risk of information theft, fraud and security breaches that may be caused by sensitive information being left unattended and in plain view.

It could also save time and money, not only on the time that might be wasted in trying to find information that has been lost in a pile of files, but also on bringing in external cleaning companies to clean the environment.

Ensuring you have accessible cleaning products that your employees are able to use on their desks and working environment will help encourage them to keep the environment clean and tidy.

Written by Andy Carr of System Hygiene