Death by a million paper cuts: how clutter ruins businesses

Marketers would kill for this, but in the office it’s a bit of a downer because it steals people’s focus. Rather than concentrating on their workload, they look around and stare at the files on the desk. It may only be for a couple of seconds or even a minute or two, but it adds up over the course of a day. Bosses need to maximise productivity if the business is going to grow and the brand reach the masses. Clutter works against this goal, which is why it needs to go ASAP. For workers to do their best work, their space should be clean and tidy.

A few years ago I worked in an office that had stacks and stacks of documents everywhere. It was a publishing house, so it seems to make sense except that those stacks never shifted. They were once put there by employees that had since left, and nobody really knew who they belonged to. Also, nobody took responsibility of tidying them up, it was just not in anyone’s job description to take charge. Well, it likely should be in the office manager’s job description but for some reason it didn’t get done. Until the office moved, and someone was forced to deal with it after all. It should have been done years before in my opinion.