How to Clean Up Your Career

Is Your Career Cluttered?

When I declutter homes, one of the words that comes up a lot is space. Open space is an important element to feeling relaxed and comfortable in your home. When it comes to organizing a workspace, relaxation and comfort aren't the primary goals. Work is about efficiency and productivity. You need to know where things are. You need to get things done in order of priority. The more neat and logically organized your workspace is, the better you will be at your job. Look around your office (or wherever you work). Is it the space of someone you would hire, trust, and promote if you owned the business? Now look at the space of someone whose work or position you admire. How do the spaces compare?

Take a good, hard look at your space and be honest with yourself. Do you need that presentation from five years ago or the files you inherited on the project that got scrapped? How many shoes are under your desk? How many shopping bags are in your desk drawer? When you look for a pen, do you have to dig under piles of salt and pepper packets? You'll never clean up your career if you don't have a clutter-free environment in which to thrive. Again, the clutter-clearing process I use is consistent across emotional and physical clutter.