When we work, we always start with a clean slate—freshly cleaned office desk, a new set of pens, unopened rims of bond paper, newly stacked books, and properly filed folders and envelopes. All the documents are turned over before we know it, and a round coffee stain is on your most important file. This is what happens when we work furiously. We tend not to notice how our space has become. Our once organized way of working is now in shambles, and we’re the only ones to blame for that.
How important is decluttering?
A cluttered space, let alone a commercial office space, is going to cause you a lot of stress and anxiety. Because there are many things scattered around the place, it will be challenging to find something you need. Likewise, your productivity will not move an inch.
Decluttering is essential because it reduces stress and anxiety and boosts your productivity and creativity, helping you find things better and faster. Aside from this, allergens are eliminated because you’re now enjoying a clean space. It’s also much easier to clean now, and with that, you can properly organize a storage system to put all your things—essential and unnecessary.
How to keep things neat and tidy
There are many basic and modern ways to keep your commercial space clean. We can list up to a hundred processes too; however, we need to go back to our roots, to what a famous motor company developed to ensure a flexible office space. This is called as the 5S system.
Five fundamental pillars represent the 5S system: sort, set in order, shine, standardize, and sustain. This process maintains a never-ending circular motion, which needs to be followed with cohesion.
- Sort
In starting the process of clearing out your office space, you can try to place everything on one side and sort out all the items there. Separate papers and put them in boxes, and label them accordingly. You can do the same process for other files and items in your office.
The “sort” process focuses on eliminating unnecessary materials in your office. You can easily differentiate them by “red-tagging” them according to value. Those items that are red-tagged are deemed unimportant or unnecessary. These will now be placed in a holding “center” or another part of the office for further evaluation—for disposal, reassignment to another location, or recycling. This eliminates all things that are broken pieces, scrap items, or excess materials.
- Set in order
Now that you have sorted out all the materials and equipment in your office, it’s time to set things in order. To properly do this, you need to follow a systematic process that involves rearranging your office’s overall look. This makes it look clean, but the new arrangement actually aims to shorten the process needed to complete an action or task.
First, draw a map of the office and then arrange everything by copying what is on the map. You can arrange other things as you go until you achieve what you have been illustrating.
- Shine
Your office is now looking spick and span. But, to achieve an overall quintessential look, ask the cleaners to perform a deep cleaning of the space first. This needs to be maintained by the janitorial staff daily to eliminate hazards and challenging situations like missing or out of place items. Likewise, rubbish removal services can also help with the task. Click to read more about this service. With proper maintenance, office workers will also be forced to maintain cleanliness and order during normal operations.
- Standardize
Standardization is powered by writing things down. This ensures that a proper process can be viewed, reviewed, and followed by the rest of the team. This will serve as an SOP or a standard operating procedure. You can create standardization procedures by following checklists, job cycle charts where each task is assigned to a particular person in charge, and procedure labels.
- Sustain
To sustain the current process, there needs to be a commitment from everyone else. Thus, the whole team should contribute accordingly. Maintaining a clean office space can be done by proper management support, department tours, regularly updated training, performing progress audits, and preparing performance evaluations. This way, everyone is conscious of their actions and decisions. Aside from maintaining a clean office with sustainability, the management will know the team’s capability and know which processes are needed for outsourcing. This will all be identified once production continues and issues are resolved.
Conclusion
A commercial office space should always be clean because this is where production happens. It should not be compromised to ensure that everyone is happy in the workplace and that everyone contributes well to the office’s everyday tasks. The act of maintaining and decluttering one’s office space reduces anxiety and allows people to enjoy a better working environment.