Did you know that there is a direct correlation between your productivity and how clean the most commonly accessed/seen areas in your life are? Resources are constantly popping up over the internet to promote a cleaner lifestyle from personal home-cleaners to people who can just only come and clean a specific area. And if we look at some data, it is said that an average person spends 4-5 hours a week searching for things. That is 4-5 hours of lost time and productivity. You might think it’s not a big deal, but in actuality, in the long term, it can lead to minimization of creativity and efficiency. So combat all of that and to really hone in on your productivity, here are 5 areas of your life you can organize today with ease:
BAG / BACKPACK / PURSE / WALLET
Take a look into your bag, wallet, purse, backpack or whatever you use to carry your daily essentials around every day. How many receipts did you find? Crumpled up bills? Random gum wrappers? Coins? These all contribute to the clutter that can easily build up to an unbearable amount if you let it. Throw away the old receipts and garbage, flatten your bills and put them in once place (even though we all love finding the rando bill and getting surprised once in a while), bundle up your coins in one place (even better if you get it cashed in), and get compartmentalized!
There are so many bag dividers out there for anything you need to organize in your bag. For chargers, there are pouches that can keep the cords in one place. For coins, there are coin pouches. Get a wallet if you don’t have one for your bills. Pencil pouch for your pens/pencils/writing utensils. There are even purse/backpack/bag dividers that can physically create different compartments.
EMAIL INBOX
Do you believe in a zero inbox? Most people say “no” because there is simply not enough time in the day to get that number down to zero. While I totally understand this if it is your work email. But honestly, I don’t think that same excuse goes for your personal email. I get a lil’ anxious every time I catch a glimpse of someone’s phone and see that they have over 1000 unread emails…HOW? It literally takes me less than 5 minutes every day to go through and delete emails I don’t need. Most are promotional anyways. With Google Mail, you can easily just “select all unread” and delete. If you are someone who are in the 1000s or worse 10,000, block off some time to do that!
DESK / WORK AREA
Mess doesn’t really bother some people, but indirectly a messy work space can really harm the overall efficiency cycle of a company. Keeping a clean desk directly corresponds to increased productivity. Take the time to clean your work area/desk from papers, supplies and more. If you don’t need something, throw it away! Stack all the unnecessary things and put them out of sight. And make sure to ALWAYS put things back to where they live after you are done using it. To combat this long term, don’t let clutter build up over time. It will make it seem like a untackable feat if you do so. Clean as you go throughout the day.
FRIDGE / FREEZER
Let’s the same exercise when you look into your fridge/freezer. Do you have anything expired/rotten? Items that have been in there for over a year and you still haven’t used it? Empty containers? THROW THEM AWAY! It pains me to realize that some people just let things be in their fridge. It is the living spot for food that goes INSIDE our body! Mold also grows in cold places and it’s extremely easy for one item to infect another. Take the time to organize by putting like-things together and making sure it’s clean.
PHONE / COMPUTER
Like your desk/workspace, your phone and/or computer is another area that tends to be easily congested all the time. I like to keep my desktop on my computer/laptop to be as clean looking as possible. Relating back to the whole thing about seeing too much can lead to a lack of productivity. If you simply have too much stuff and actually need it, then create folders! They are an essential to me and can keep you from going crazy by searching through every document. And once you are done with a document, easily archive that away in another created folder. As for the million and one tabs that are probably open on your laptop right now…do you actually need all of them? Close them if you aren’t using it right now. They can be easily re-visited, especially since our internets have great history records now.
As for your phones, delete the apps that you no longer use. I used to be guilty of having 100 and then some of games and such…how many do you actually open every week, much less every day? Keep a track of the apps that you use over a one month period and delete the rest! It’s just clutter and taking up space (visually and literally).
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A million and one thanks for reading – until my next lil’ thought then!
xx jen
2 Comments
My bag and inbox are never cluttered because I always clear them immediately! I prefer small bags and am very intentional about what I carry in them, and when I get home, I unpack and put everything back in its proper place; I’ll leave essentials in the bag if I know I’ll use the same bag again soon. I’m religious about my email inbox and will unsubscribe to things immediately if I notice I don’t want those emails anymore; I know some people just delete the emails every time instead of unsubscribing, but I think that’s not the most efficient long-term method. One thing that really gets cluttered for me is my Notes app on my phone. But just a few nights ago I couldn’t sleep, so I laid in bed and decluttered all my Notes, so now I’m all good! 😀 -Audrey | Brunch at Audrey’s
ooo girl I am so proud of ya! that is sooo amazing – I can never focus with clutter so always making an intentional effort to clean ahah
xx jen