It’s easy to underestimate the value of a clean workspace. When you’re busy, we don’t always realize how many bottles and stray papers end up laying around the home office. However, the fact is that this can do more damage than one would think!
There’s a pretty strong connection between a clean workspace and productivity. Today, we’ll discuss why that is and hopefully convince you to start keeping a clean home office (or another workspace).
Keep reading to learn more.
1. Know Where Everything Is
One of the most immediate benefits of a clean home office is that you get to know where everything is. When you keep your workspace clean, assuming you do it right, you also get to keep it organized.
A bit of a nefarious truth about disorganization is that, most days, it may not affect you much. Unless your office is a disaster, chances are you know where your common go-to documents and supplies are.
The damage comes when you need something out of the ordinary. Be it an old receipt, the manual to one of your many office machines, or some important client document, do you have a way to know where it might be?
If you don’t keep a clean home office, chances are slim you know where everything that could be important might be. An office needs organization for that.
While some information can be reobtained with a quick Google search or an embarrassed email, not everything can be. In fact, losing the wrong document can sometimes spell disaster for a company. So keep organized!
2. Have More Room to Work With
Another benefit to keeping a clean workspace is you get to have more room to work with. A stack of papers, alongside an empty bottle or two, can take up way more desk space than we often realize.
Meanwhile, a few boxes of old fax machine manuals, broken printer parts, and dried-out pens stacked unevenly throughout the room can take up tons of room all around the office.
For some reason, we have a habit of keeping things we’re almost certain to never need again. (In part, it may be a bit of laziness combined with an overwhelming feeling of fatigue after a long day of work.)
The problem with mess is that it gets worse, not better, if ignored. Bottles and boxes pile up. The place looks worse and gets harder to find a good place to store what you actually need.
Do yourself a favor and keep your space organized and clean. If it seems too hard to do on your own, you can also consider the help of a house cleaning service.
3. Keep up Your Mood and Health
Do you know clutter has a proven negative effect on your mental health? Clutter doesn’t only exist in one’s workspace, but that’s definitely one of the biggest places it tends to reside, at least if you work from home.
One of the strangest ways clutter can affect our health is we can grow attached to meaningless items or piles. Some people even can get paranoid or anxious if others move or touch these things.
Clutter can become an obsession that leads to hoarding, although that’s somewhat rare. More rare is this overwhelming anxiety that the mess is too big to clean while still hurting your ability to live and work.
The longer things stay messy and cluttered, the more overwhelming the idea of fixing the issue can become. It’s no wonder that studies have shown that people who feel overwhelmed by too much “stuff” are also more likely to procrastinate.
This is again where a cleaning service may be able to help. You can guide them on what you want while they do the heavy lifting. Then when things are better, it will be easier to push yourself to keep on top of your mess.
It’s also worth noting some mess may be a threat to your physical health too. Dust and rotting or sticky foods invite trouble.
While often less a concern than clutter’s effect on your mental health, major mess really can wreak havoc on the body. As a rule, make sure to dust regularly and always thoroughly clean up any food mess to protect your physical wellbeing.
4. Create a More Efficient Workflow
As a final point, keeping your workspace clean can improve workflow. When everything is in its place and nothing is in the way, you are better able to do your job.
Remember, a lot of wasted time is much like death by one thousand cuts. You may only waste a few minutes or seconds on a given task in a disorganized workspace. However, that time adds up!
Let’s assume you have a moderately disorganized, dirty workspace. Through some combination of mess and the fatigue of dealing with a space that is hurting your mental health, we’ll assume a minute or two gets wasted per hour of work.
If you work eight hours a day in that situation, that’s 16 minutes of wasted time per day. That amounts to 90 minutes of wasted time per week, assuming five days of work.
In that situation, you’d save over an hour a week with a cleaner workspace. That’s in addition to all the other benefits we talked about.
We Can Help Get Your Clean Workspace Started
Getting a clean workspace can be a hassle if you’ve been putting it off for a long time. Like we mentioned, mess piles up. At the same time, cleaning up your space is absolutely worth it in the long run.
If you’d like help getting in contact with experienced, vetted, house cleaning experts who can help, we hope you’ll contact us. They can help you tackle tough cleaning challenges and then keep on top them once things are fixed!
