Cleaning Off Your Desk for National #CleanOffYourDeskDay and getting organized.

Not many “celebrate” National Clean Off Your Desk Day, but it does remind us to clean up and get organized. Although #CleanOffYourDeskDay is every second Monday in January, cleaning your desk off regularly has benefits!

Regardless if you started working from home back in 2020, as we continue to, or if you’re at the office, making your workspace neat not only keeps it looking nice at home or at your office, but it will also help you focus.

Focus-

Do you have extra sticky notes, piles of papers, and supplies scattered around your desk?

Rather than wasting time digging through piles of work to find that one important document, toss away what you don’t need and file what you do, and see how much faster you are at getting things done. “I know, I can accumulate too many pens on my desk.” You’ll be less distracted, so you can focus on the task at hand. You will likely find yourself being more productive since you’ll know exactly where the items you need are located.

Space-

Do you have to move items around when you have a meeting or a colleague joining you at your desk?

Have you had a client calling you and asking you a question that you couldn’t find the answer to?

You may even see coworkers move to conference rooms or common areas just to have space to disperse. Often, all the space they needed is hidden right under the clutter on their very own desks. Clean off your desk now so you’ll have plenty of space to focus and spread out.

Professional image-

Whether you work from home or are in an office space, desks are personal, and the neatness of your work area can say as much about you as your own appearance and work.

Having a reasonable work area makes you appear more coordinated, skilled, and accommodating. Truth be told, keeping a clean, proficient work area can do a lot for both your image and your organization’s, for instance when customers and upper administration drop by.

National Clean Off Your Desk Day is a great reminder to keeping our desks and workspaces clean and organized.

Now in 2022, with many software solutions to help us stay organized and neat, few of us still have a rotary business card holder on our desk or even a wall calendar.

Many companies offer paperless solutions and place safety in the cloud, automating many procedures. You will often find that the best is to utilize all you can, so you are able to evolve and execute your own or your company’s tasks more efficiently, saving not only money but time!

At CIS Group we apply agile methods, which helps the whole team to stay organized and get tasks done without repetition or errors.

Tips on cleaning off your desk. 

• Keep a recycling bin close by, for papers you no longer need. If you write reminders or tasks on a sticky note, toss them away after your done the task at hand.
• File, paperwork you need to keep.
• Drawers come in handy to store some office supplies you might not use daily or too frequently.
• Invest in software solutions that will make work tasks easier and more efficient, eliminating piles of paperwork scattered notes.
• Wipe down and sanitize surfaces on your desk. Having less clutter on your desk makes it easier to freshen up and clean monitors, keyboards, desktop, phone, and any other items you touch frequently.
• Prioritize items that can be placed sooner than later, we tend to put things off and forget.

Although, you can celebrate National Clean Off Your Desk Day any time of year. I tend to take 5 minutes after every workday to refresh my desk, and at least 5 minutes a week to wipe my workspace down. Taking shorter and more frequent times to tidy up makes it easier and saves us from a huge clean-up that we tend to keep delaying. Happy Organizing!

Melanie Ladouceur

Marketing coordinator – CIS Group