Yesterday was my first work day in the office I had roughly de-cluttered over the weekend.  It was awesome.

It’s like taking some flotsam out of the office has cleared it out of my mind too.  Working was just so much easier without unconsciously fighting the resistance of Stuff.

I’m also glad to say that I’m about halfway done with my follow-up lists and have hope of finishing this evening.

Here’s to making your work environment work for you!

I popped into the office this weekend for some uninterrupted office maintenance time.

A Messy Office by Beth77 on Flickr

Basically, it’s a medium-small office that lots of people use throughout the week, and I’m in charge of it.  I do a pretty good job of keeping the day-to-day stuff under control, but it was feeling cluttered.  And why organize what I could just toss?

I decided to attack the stuff that had no discernible use but still took up space.  It was a single-minded stuff-reduction rampage.  And it was beautiful.

The rampaging actually only took an hour and half.  I spent another uninterrupted hour and a half dealing with statistics (learner hours, etc.) and am proud to report that they’re soundly under control.

The Desk! It's...neat! by Rae Whitlock on Flickr

How I made the most of clean-up time:

• I made sure there were no distractions.
• I went for a huge, noticeable impact, inspired by the 80/20 rule and my mother.
• I only set two goals.
• My follow-up plan is written down: a list and a few neatly labeled piles.

Successful and satisfying.

It would be great to hear about other successes in office wrangling!

This was an amazing weekend.  I had four glorious days to myself!  I got a lot done in my apartment that I’d been putting off, and the result is that I have room in my closets, a desk, and a much smaller population of dust-bunnies.  I’ve effectively expanded my living space now that my desk is a place where I can spend time, and all those pesky tasks of day-to-day living will be easier now that I can find things and put them away.

Even though I’m not quite prepared to start thinking about work again just yet, I definitely noticed myself thinking that it would be nice to spend some time getting a handle on my office environment again.  I think it would make a huge difference in how I feel at work and in how fast I can find things.  I don’t think I’ll be able to work in cleaning/organization/de-cluttering time this week, but I’m thinking that it needs to become a priority for a day sometime before mid-July.  Because wow.

There are a million tips for getting and staying organized all over the Internet.  I didn’t look at any of them.  Three mindsets that worked for me this weekend:

1. Go for high-impact bulk stuff first.  In other words, don’t start by dusting your DVD collection; start by washing and putting away the 11 loads of laundry floating around the apartment.
2. Get rid of things.  Ask yourself, “Am I really going to take this item with me if I move in a year?”
3. Take a moment to decorate your space.  For instance, my desk is now clear of piles of junk, and that’s great.  I also took 5 minutes to decorate the area with miscellaneous pictures that were floating around – a fun reward for present-Emily and future-Emily.