Tidy desk tidy Mind Selling Observations of Buyers' desks

Here's a fun exercise to do.

What's on your desk right now?

1. Get out your smart phone and take a photo of your desk.
2. Go to your outlook home page on your PC and screen save it.

• How cluttered is your desk today?
• How does the 'desktop' on your computer look?
• What's the back log on your Outlook look like?

2,000 Brits were surveyed in a research published by journalist Hayden Smith in London's Metro newspaper and Daniel Hunting at freshbusinessthinking.com  and elsewhere. The study was produced for office stationery supplier Staples.


So much for the paperless office - apparently pieces of paper on the nation's  23 million desks would reach a 143 times the height of the Shard

60% of office workers experience  a rise in stress levels when faced with a messy desk in the morning

50% of workers only tidy their desks once a month. 10% said they last organised or cleaned their workplace six months ago

On average office workers' desks are cluttered with 19 useless pieces of paper which amounts to a 450 million pieces nationwide.

48% of staff lose important documents through untidiness.

If these were stacked into the air they would reach some thirty miles !

An untidy desk increases stress, leads to low energy, anxiety and a bad mood.

Half admit leaving dirty cups and plates around the workplace

A third of desks are strewn with half eaten food, empty sweet wrappers and bottles.

46 % admitted to leaving dirty cups and plates around their workspace,
6% leaving grubby crockery on their desk for three days or more.

 Debunking the popular myth that women are tidier then men, the study also found that members of the fairer sex have desks ...just as messy as their male counterparts.

 

An untidy desk increases stress at work,

 "A messy desk is not only bad for your own mind-set, it can also harm your relationship with colleagues," says Professor Tomas Chamorro (UCL Psychology).

 Well I admit tidiness is a challenge for me so I went to the Staples site Caryn Tolpa  has 8 suggestions to try.

1.       Manage your to read pile - files and using the waste paper bin

2.       Think before you print - Instead of printing, bookmark any interesting pages that you find

3.       Learn to filter and bin - because new and better information is constantly accessible to us via the Internet, there's less need to maintain all types of files.

4.       Create a record retention policy - what to keep indefinitely, for 6/ 4 / and 3 years

5.       Send them a away - benefits of off site storage

6.       Invest in equipment - scanners, business card holders, plenty of file folders, file labels, cardboard boxes and bins, plastic crates and carts, and file cabinets. And don't forget wastebaskets and recycling bins for the items that you choose not to file.

7.       Organise your corporate culture - an album or box of mementos ( photos etc)

8.       Think of your office as your kitchen treat the paper in your office as if it's perishable food.    

 
Desk tidiness can also perhaps indicate the desk owners perosnality.( this light hearted anecdotal observation yet ......)

Dominant Introverts ( lions) Tend to have tidy desks. Should their company have a clear your desk each night they do this. If you were to open their drawer the items would have been placed in an orderly manner

Dominant Extroverts ( Monkeys) tend to have slightly untidy desks. However they try to  diguise this ( usually because they have had to attend a time management course.) There fore at teh end of the day they will adhere to the clean desk policy by sweeping off all items at the end of the day and stuffing them in the drawer !

Submissive Extroverts  ( Rabiits /Dolphins) quite often have untidy desks. They look as though a bomb has hit. It is unlikely you will see there desk as a Salesperson as they will want to meet you anywhere other than their office such as a meeting room , a free tarining room, the canteen out of meal times even off site!

Submissive Introverts ( Elephants) Like huge amouts of information. They can ahve a lot of paper on desk. They may have an untidy desk but they know where everything is.

Great tips for a tidier desk from Staples

http://www.staples.com/sbd/content/article/c-d/clutterfree.html

According to Iron Mountain, the national records management company, approximately 5% of a company's records need to be kept indefinitely.

 The remaining 95% of your files can either be thrown away immediately or kept for a defined period of time, then discarded.


Related Links and Information

Barbara Hemphill's  book " Taming the Office Tiger " 

Simple client personality matrix