Are you the type of person who forgets things by placing them somewhere without a previous thought? Do you often feel like being in a chaotic environment ?.

Well, if your answer is “Yes,” – then you might need to build the habit of keeping your things organized.

Due to the remote culture, most of us have to work from home. And If you want to be productive by doing work from home – you might need a space to draw the boundary line. The boundary line should clearly define where you should be working and where you should be doing your household chores.

Even if you have a tiny real estate in the house – you can still create an organized workspace by sacrificing a few things.

If you can afford a table and chair, please go for it – it will boost your productivity to the next level.

Keeping things organized is a habit that will help you in many aspects of your life – not only the work part. The more chaotic and messed up your house or workspace is, the more cluttered your mind will be.

[P.S: Because I am organized type of person, I sometimes feel irritated when things are not arranged in regular order. I hate when the workspace is messy. But, I am working on myself – letting go and being ok with living in a messed-up environment, where I have no control over it.

Here I will tell you why you should keep your workspace organized.

1. Declutter your mind

Our brain always processes two kinds of activities: internal and external. Most of the time, it processes both.

Internal activity includes – Your random thoughts, your pop-up reminders within the brain.

External activity includes – Environmental cues such as someone chatting behind your desk or the music playing loud in speakers.

What I have realized is, both these activities influence each other. If you have a cluttered mind, you will be more likely to mess up with your environment. If you have a messed-up environment, you will be more likely to have a cluttered mind.

You can declutter both the internal and external factors of our brain by organizing them.

How?

To declutter your internal thoughts – write down the ideas and organize your thoughts.

To declutter your external thoughts – make your workspace clean after finishing the work.

Making your workspace clean and tidy after your work will help you to start your work any time again. When your workspace is clean, you will not be stressed out; when you sit again for work – you will feel every time as a fresh start.

The more you feel the environment is organized, the more you will see your thought patterns organized – when you are in that environment.

2. Improve productivity

Organizing my workspace has proved to improve productivity for myself. As I said, every time I sit to do something, it feels like I have a fresh start.

It’s not that hard to follow this habit, you have to define a place for certain things, and you should place those things in that position – before and after usage.

For example, I have a water bottle arranged near my workspace, and each time I pick up and place the water bottle in the same place after using it.

This is a simple example in which my brain automatically signals to pick up the water bottle in that direction when I am thirsty. This saves me time searching where the water bottle is, and that drinking process often happens without my consciousness.

This happens with everything; I place my shoes, cycling outfits, and my cycle in the same position – So that my brain will be able to process much faster with reduced thinking.

The simple hack to improve productivity is to improve convenience and reduce the friction between you and the tasks you want to get done. And organizing things does reduce friction and improves your comfort most of the time.

3. Cognitive offloading

When it comes to organizing your workspace, you need to do two types of tasks.

You have to organize both the digital as well as physical workspace.

If you have a white-collar job, you have to do both.

Physical workspaces include the devices you use – such as your mobile, laptop, monitor, and other accessories. You should know where you have placed each accessory.

Instead of remembering, you can also organize your stationery and electronic objects with the frequency of usage.

Consider keeping the most frequently used things at the reach of your hand. And keep other things somewhere else and eliminate the unwanted items from your workspace.

Keep your workspace minimalized with equipment that improves focus. And also, remove the unwanted things that will derail your focus.

For example, I keep my required electronic devices with a few stationary objects on the table, and everything else goes into the cupboard. I have a place where I place my headphones ( Both wired as well as wireless)

This will make me subconsciously pick up the headphone – when I need that.

And my simple rule is to place back that object the same place where I took it.

Conclusion

Being an organized person is merely a choice and not a compulsion. But it might help you in improving your working style.

There are some discussions around that being organized kills creativity. It’s not being organized with the things and tasks you have to -it keeps your brain free to think of creative thoughts.

Your brain needs some attentional space to process the ideas for you.

Don’t organize while working. That’s what kills creativity.

Let the mess be around while you are working on something and let the creativity flow through it. Only organize the things after completing the work or when your time is up.

Be Creative but Be Organized