Kristin White del Rosso, Pea Organizing Services, Inc.

January is Get Organized MonthSM
How to Get Started Organizing Your Workspace

With the holiday rush behind you and shorter daylight hours, what better time to get your life and space back in order than during Get Organized MonthSM in January? While you may be inclined to conquer every New Year’s resolution and organize every aspect of your life in one month, consider starting with your workspace, then tackle other cluttered areas of your life one space at a time within a reasonable deadline.

Creating a functional and clutter-free workspace achieves many goals including helping you work smarter, be more productive and stress free. With that comes managing and organizing your workspace. It is easy to look at the big picture—at how much stuff there is to sort through—and to become overwhelmed. Instead, focus on the most current incoming information, papers and items.

Not sure where to begin with your office productivity makeover? Start with your desk in honor of Clean Off Your Desk Day (January 8) because it is a fundamental area in your workspace. It can be tempting to tackle other piles and boxes that you have not gone through for months or years, but if you do not deal with what is coming in today and most recently, it will become another pile or box and potentially cost you precious time searching for the information. In fact, research shows that the average worker spends 150 hours per year looking for misplaced information and that an average of $250 is spent in recreating a lost document.

Therefore, you need a system in place for handling your current papers. Gather all of the papers on your desk into one pile or into your inbox. Then filter through the papers or files one at a time. Give your full attention to each item and make one of five decisions for the item (in this order):

1. Discard
This is the decision you want to make most often to get organized. Do not try to organize things that you should not be keeping in the first place. Ask yourself: What is the worst possible thing that could happen if I get rid of this? If you can live with the answer, let it go.

2. Delegate
Don’t work on things that others could do. Work on things that only you, with your skills, knowledge and training can do. If you can delegate it—do it. Think of creative delegation options like having your older children do the filing.

3. Take Immediate Action
If it’s something that can be done in three to five minutes or less—such as sign and mail a form, or reply with a quick e-mail—just do it now. Be careful not to start working on things that take longer than a few minutes, as you will lose momentum in clearing off your desk and creating a system for current papers and items.

4. File for Follow-Up
These are items that require some sort of action on your part; however they cannot be done in a few minutes or you may be waiting on something from someone else to start. Therefore, file these items for follow-up and use a file system, such as hanging file boxes, on or near your desk. You can use a tickler file with the dates 1–31 and months January–December and file them when you plan to do the next action. Otherwise, schedule them in your planner/calendar and make an action file for these current “Action Items.”

5. File for Reference
These are items you want to keep because you may need them in the future. But they do not require any action or follow up. These would normally go in a file drawer in your desk or office, but not on your desk or work surfaces. If using a manual filing system, name the file, file it, and add it to your file index.