Clean Up Your Desk to Work More Efficiently

When we have a lot of clutter and papers on our desk, it can be hard to work efficiently. If you spend your days looking at a desk cluttered with all of your tasks, you can easily be intimidated. And what about under your desk? Do you frequently have to kick wires out of the way while you are working? If this sounds familiar, here are a few easy ways you can cut down clutter and enhance your efficiency.

1. Tackle the wires – You can organize your wires a couple easy ways. One is very inexpensive, just use binder clips and clip the wires together. Another, more expensive option, is to buy a wireless charging pad, often called a powermat. These devices permit you to charge your wireless mouse, keyboard, and devices just by putting them on it. This way you can get rid of all of the cords you need for either charging devices or connecting them to your computer.
2. Reduce desktop clutter – Often, our desks can become cluttered with papers. The simplest way to reduce this is to use less paper. We rely so much on digital communication it is an easy shift to use programs like Evernote to store your notes. Also, try not to print documents, just store articles and reports in folders on your computer. If you must print things out, file them as soon as you are done reading them. This will keep you organized and minimize clutter.
3. Throw things away – This may be the most self-evident one but it’s incredible how quickly sticky notes and other scraps of paper can build up. If you’re done with a note you wrote yourself, or a printout from a meeting, just throw it away. If you’ll need it later, then file it in the proper place. The quicker you get these things off your desk, the more effective you will be. Often visible chaos can lead us to feel like we have more difficult tasks ahead of us than may be the case.