Welcome to the January edition of your personal productivity e-newsletter where you’ll find tips to maximize your productivity. This month’s edition focuses on your office set-up.

Does your office set-up support your productivity? Are you able to quickly find things when needed? Are you distracted by piles and outstanding action items?

Our work environment has a big impact on how much we get done and how well. The New Year is an ideal time to start fresh. Given that, here are some suggestions to optimize your office set-up.

1) File, Don’t Pile
Yes, this is easier said than done. The key is to have a solid filing system in place. If you currently lack this, consider establishing three levels of files: working, reference and archive.

  • Working files are the active files you refer to on a daily or weekly basis. These should be housed in your office’s “prime real estate” or right at your fingertips, (e.g. your desk filing drawers).
  • Reference files are those that you need less frequently, like on a monthly basis. Keep these in your office, but not in the “prime real estate” occupied by your working files, (e.g. latched filing cabinet behind your desk).
  • Archive files are those files that are wrapped up and not currently being used. If these cannot be purged (and the majority of them can), they should be housed in less accessible locations, not necessarily in your office.

Keep in mind that your filing system needs room to grow. If your drawers are bursting at the seams, there is no doubt that you’ll choose to make piles instead of filing things away.

2) Maintain a “To Do” List
What does this have to do with office set-up? A reliable ‘To Do’ list helps us feel comfortable putting files away. We often keep piles on our desks because we think we need visible reminders to act on something. But the problem is, we often find ourselves sorting through these piles to re-prioritize items or refresh our memories. Not an effective use of time! The piles also create distractions, which impede our ability to focus on the task at hand. Once again, ineffective!

By tracking all (yes, 100%) of our outstanding action items on a ‘To Do’ list, we are more likely to put things away in our highly effective filing system (see tip #1).

3) Establish a Home for Everything
Everything needs a home: office supplies, reference materials, reading materials, papers coming in or going out of your office, notebooks, materials to bring home; I’m sure you have a long list. Each time you go to put something down in your office, ask yourself, “Is this the proper home?” If a home doesn’t exist, it’s time to establish one. When thinking about your ‘homes’, store things where you use them and keep “like” things together.

And finally, commit to putting things away and out of sight if not needed, including the shoe collection under your desk. It’s an obvious suggestion, and a key one at the same time.