 By Shannon Marshburn In Northeastern Ohio, there is usually one good last snow to get through before spring can bloom. So now starts the season of spring cleaning, and at times spring cleaning and self-care can be work itself. Here are some simple tips to help you stay a little more organized and a little more stress free. Take Breaks! Breaks are an important way to keep focused and stay productive. Breaks help keep you motivated, focused, and help to minimize distractions and avoid over-working yourself. During your break, go on a short walk, or get a snack. Make sure you take your break away from your workspace to reset your focus completely. If you find your momentum and can stay focused on a particular task, wait until you get to a good stopping point to take a break.  Keep a Clean Environment A clean environment is a comfortable one, which makes staying productive easier. In an organized office, you find supplies and materials efficiently, which makes your workflow more consistent. Decluttering your workspace is a crucial part of staying clean and organized. Once a week or month, take stock of your workspace and remove any items that you don’t use daily. This is one of my favorite tips and I use this mindset all the time when cleaning! I am very sentimental about some objects, and I am a maximalist, so I love to hang onto everything. When it’s moving or cleaning time, I take a look at the room and think, if I really loved this item, it would be out on display, or it would be used. If it has been in a box in the closet for months, then it is not that important to me, and I can let it go.  Chase The Feeling
Spending 15-20 minutes every day on cleaning will prevent the mess from building up and make the occasional big cleaning you do infinitely easier. Chasing the good feeling of having done a task can motivate you to get started. So rather than focusing on how long it will take, or how “hard” it’s going to be, or how much I hate doing said chore, I stop for just a moment and picture what it will feel like when I'm done. Time Block Your Days Time blocking your days can help you focus on your tasks. Time blocking involves planning out your calendar so that you complete certain tasks at specific times of the day, which helps minimize distractions. When you use time blocks as a guide for your day, you can be flexible and adjust them as needed based on meetings and other requests you receive. Purge Your Supplies Too many office supplies can hinder productivity. They clutter up your desk and make you feel like you have no room to spread out and work. One of the first steps in staying organized at work is to sort through all your office supplies and get rid of (throw away or donate) items you don’t regularly use. Then it’s time to find a place for everything. Once you do this, make sure to clean up at the end of the day so that your desk and office environment will be organized in the morning, and you can start fresh each day. Multitasking Does Not Get More Things Done Our productivity gone down by as much as 40%. We don’t actually multitask. We switch-task, rapidly shifting from one thing to another, interrupting ourselves unproductively, and losing time in the process. (American Psychology Association: https://www.apa.org/topics/research/multitasking) Focus on completing one project or task at a time. Doing this can prevent mistakes, create less stress and help you meet deadlines.You may also feel more accomplished when you're focused on a specific task without distractions, and once it's done, you can check that task off of your to-do list and use it as momentum to start your next task of the day. I hope these tips will help you in your journey to a clean and less stressful environment! If you would like to learn more tips like these, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn @UAkronuarf
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