Many times I feel overstressed in the morning while sitting on my work computer, I seem to have found the no’ 1 reason why this happens, and how to solve it.
Sometimes I come to my office and the first thing I see in the morning are 5-6 piles of papers and billing notices waiting to be handled.
One of the piles has been left this way for over 3 months! This happens when we don’t have a mechanism or a procedure to handle new action items correctly in our office.
If you know what I’m talking about, you also know that sometimes this piled up work just makes you feel like you’re overloaded – and if the piles stay there for longer periods they even make you feel overstressed.
Recently I have done extreme efforts to handle this issue before it really gets out of control, the first thing I did was to take all the piles of paper and create one big pile of papers / tasks, then I went to the local office supplies store and bought about 10 folders. now what I did was to actually break these papers / tasks into folders – 1 paper at a time. This actually took me more than 1 week. but seeing everything placed neatly together really helps me now, because my desk is clean and empty with a lot of desk space I can use to work on the actual item which is currently being worked on.
This might sound too simple but now, you’ll have to put all these folders into a closet you can reach and do not put them into some back closet 20 feet away from you! I went and bought a small 2 drawer closet which sits on the floor on my right side and it takes 2 seconds to get a folder from it. This closet is closed most of the time so I don’t actually get to see all the 1000 items which i have already managed – This really takes the used to be visible stress away from the office.
When new items arrive be sure to have some time everyday to take these items and put them on the right folder. If you can’t find one from them create a new folder, don’t just leave it piling up somewhere, the paper will stay there forever – We have already seen that happening.
Having a clean workspace will free much of that work stress you might have when arriving to your office and also might get your thoughts right when working on something – since the chances of you leaving the current task and skipping between tasks has decreased because the other tasks are now neatly arranged in your closet.
the great advantage here is that when people / your boss or someone else comes to your desk he will also like the way you are arranged and aware to your workspace.
Great Ebooks and Resources:
DeClutter Fast – The bible of getting everything in your business, home or anywhere else organized.
To sum things up:
These days, work is piling up on every one’s desks, people are getting fired from their work thus more work gets to you and companies take more tasks on themselves while having to employ less people. Having a clean and ordered workspace will greatly help you in the mission of a non stressful, on the time managed tasks of a lifestyle we all seek for.
Too lazy to start now? check out my former article about job laziness and how to get things done, even when we hate to do them.
Tzvi.
