Small Business Growing

Achieving Extreme Organization: Start a Productivity Transformation with Simplicity (2)

We underestimate the impact our physical work space has on our motivation and personal productivity.

We develop habits and accept them as “normal,” but some habits can severely constrain our level of productivity, and personal satisfaction.

Here is the simple – yet overlooked – point I’d like to make in this brief post:  There is a very good chance you have way too much “stuff” in your work space, and if you do it can really slow you down, on many levels.

The structure, logic, and basic order of our physical space has everything to do with how productive we can be on any given day.

Where do you start if you want to get a more functional, deliberate, and productive design for you work space?

Start by asking and answering this question:  What can I throw out to make the space lean, more visually coherent, and eventually far more productive?

Then start somewhere…anywhere.

Pick just one focused area of your work space..maybe one file in one filing cabinet (physical or digital, and eventually both), and get that one area totally cleaned out and organized.

Then work through the whole space, one small area at a time.

Toss everything you can, being aware of legal needs to hold some docs.

Removing the things you do not actually use in the performance of work, is one first step in applying design principles to your personal performance.  The intent is a design of space and a discipline of maintenance that contributes to flow, speed, ease, organization, rapid retrieval of documents and other “things” you use to do work,  and that great feeling of being in control.

Tossing is so obvious and simple that it is often overlooked, but know that there is good theory and more than enough sophisticated thinking behind the design of uncluttered work space.

Clutter in your work space is like carrying extra weight on your shoulders.  Remove it and feel the liberation.

[Fran O'Neal is a small business owner, consultant and researcher who helps business owners use a remarkable business growth system.  He is also the founder of The Entrepreneur's Journey, an educational ministry for small business owners.]

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 30th, 2011 at 6:05 am and is filed under Growing, Personal Productivity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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