In our last blog, we touched on the fact that if you spend 30 minutes a day sifting through piles of paperwork just to find documents or supplies, you’re wasting 130 hours per year. That’s 16.25 (8-hour) workdays. Now let’s talk about ways to get those 16+ days back!

James Clear talks about ‘resetting the room’ in his award-winning book, Atomic Habits. It’s such a simple concept with so many valuable benefits. Let’s look at how we can apply this to our day-to-day in business operations to prevent clutter and improve our productivity:

1. Reset your desk – at the end of the day, clear your desk off.
   1. Place your pens/highlighters/drafting materials in their respective containers or drawers
   2. File all paperwork that you were working on into labeled folders for easy access the next time they’re needed (If you don’t currently have an “active tasks” filing system in place, stay tuned – that blog is coming soon!)
   3. Clear any trash/cups from the area and do a quick wipe down
   4. Close out web browsers, emails, and other programs
2. Reset your calendars
   1. Cross today off on your wall calendar
   2. Review your daily tasks/agenda, transfer any remaining tasks to the following day’s list
3. Reset your office –
   1. Push your chair in
   2. Empty trash/recycling
   3. Shut off lights
4. Reset your vehicle – if you’re anything like me, you spend a lot of days on the road making multiple stops, which always entails plenty of snacks and coffee.
   1. Remove all trash, coffee mugs, etc.
   2. Remove laptop bags, materials, and receipts
   3. Turn radio down to reasonable volume – morning you is likely not the same person as end-of-day you

In addition to daily resets – I’ve added a variety of tasks once per week to my reset list. Monday, check/replace ink in printers. Thursday, take trash out. Friday check for/perform software updates on computers.

It’s amazing how much of an impact those 5 minutes at the end of the day, will have on the beginning of the next. You get to choose – 130 hours per year stressing and searching through clutter, or 22 hours per year resetting your workspace and lowering your stress.

What other things will you add to your reset list?