Whether you’re one of those people who love to be tidy or you’re a sloppy creative type: you should always make sure you have an orderly desk and neatly sorted documents. This will save you time looking for stuff and help you to stay on top of things during stressful times. You should therefore do everything you can straight away to ensure that all items and documents have a set place.
Why is a tidy workstation important?
People often make assumptions about how somebody works by the look of their workstation. Even if you are in control of your own creative chaos and can work with it really well, it will not make a good impression on your boss, your customers or your competitors. An untidy desk implies inefficient and chaotic working methods and is frowned upon by companies.
If you have a tidy workstation design, you will be doing yourself a favour. After all, whether you’re studying or doing your job, it will help you to maintain an overview, find important documents again at any time and therefore work efficiently. If you’re working on longer customer projects or studying for a bachelor’s or master’s degree, having the right system for keeping your desk tidy will be worth its weight in gold. Summaries, invoices and notes all have their own fixed place and so you will be able to lay your hands on them at any time.
10 tips for a tidier workstation
- Create a filing system that you divide into the categories “current”, “ongoing” and “completed”. This way, you can sort incoming documents directly into the right box and know directly what the current processing status is. You should adapt your filing system so that it optimally supports your work processes.
- Labeled folders for individual projects help you maintain an overview and quickly find important documents such as invoices. Flat clinch stapling allows you to flatten your documents, saving you a lot of space in your filing cabinet.
- Collect items of the same type in one place. For example, set up a drawer for office supplies such as scissors, notepads or staples.
- In order not to lose track in the jungle of digital documents, you also need to structure yourself digitally. To do this, create project folders that you design as you need them.
- With the daily flood of emails, chaos quickly breaks out in the inbox. Here, too, a categorised folder system is useful, which you can divide up according to projects, clients or days of the week, for example.
- Regularly sort out items that you never use.
- Keep completed project folders in a filing cabinet and sort them by client and year. Documents that you no longer need should be disposed of safely. Use document shredders to avoid data theft.
- Use a planner instead of individual pieces of paper to write down to-dos. This way you don’t get lost in a chaos of notes and have all important notes in one place.
- Use the time just before closing time for a little tidying session. Put all the things you no longer need in a drawer or cupboard. Sort documents into the filing cabinet and then write down your to-dos for the next day. This way you are well prepared for the new day.
- Work with the 5S method, which we will introduce to you right here. In 5 steps, you can easily create more order in your workplace.
Ensure order with the 5S method
The 5S method is a simple system you can use to ensure a permanently orderly workstation. The method originally comes from the production industry and was developed to keep workstations tidy and well-ordered. It should allow work processes to run as smoothly as possible. Using the 5S method, you can ensure more order at your workstation: