Is Organizing Your Office Really Self-Love

Organizing, tidying, and decluttering are often used in the same way when talking about “cleaning up a space.” But would you consider any of these actions self-love? I do! It’s actually a very powerful act of self-love.

Your physical workspace (and your calendar) are both very important to your daily work and personal life. Organizing can give you a sense of control by establishing order and shaping your workspace. When you gain control of your space (and your calendar), you become less stressed and your sense of overwhelm settles down. 

One of my favorite sayings is “Visual chaos creates mental chaos.” When you make the decision to take the time to organize your space, aka your visual chaos, your mental chaos is settled. So, it makes sense that when your office is organized (tidied or decluttered) you’re more efficient and productive. 

There are so many benefits of organizing your office workspace. I could talk about it for days and it’s actually something I’ve built a business around. The very act of tidying, decluttering, organizing your workspace actually reflects to yourself and to others the self-respect you have. Taking the time to care about the space you work in, the equipment you work on, the workflow of your clients projects shows others that you take yourself seriously and you work to keep your physical and mental space orderly. You’re someone who people want to work with!

“Visual order creates mental order” is the goal we all work towards. Why? That mental order translates into a positive mindset. Keeping your workspace orderly is not always easy. But it’s worth the work you put in. Creating order out of chaos creates a shift in your mind that says “OK, mission accomplished. What’s next? I’m ready!”. It’s a positive mindset for what’s coming next. 

This isn’t only true in the workspace, it’s also true in your home. We’re not aiming for perfection (no one can attain that anyway!), we’re making progress towards goals and positive habits aka – Self Love! Loving yourself in the workspace is reflected in you taking the time to look around and take steps toward taking control of your environment to make it just as you’d like it. Self-respect, goal setting, positive habits, efficient and productive steps towards goals you set, gaining control of your time to build an intentional life. That’s why organization, tidying, and decluttering are all so vital. That’s’ why these actions are a very powerful act of self-love.

This month, make a date with yourself at least one time per week (30 minutes is a great goal) to look around your workspace and take action on an area that needs improvement. It may be the corner of your desk that just needs to have the dust bunnies wiped away, pens put into a cup and your printer refilled with paper. Or it may be sitting at your computer/laptop and deleting old emails, unsubscribing to those emails from companies you no longer follow, or flagging important emails to finish up on later. It may actually be a larger project like putting together your project papers in to one binder (the whole task of gathering, three whole punching, organizing into the binder, labeling and then putting it away).

None of these actions are really anything you necessarily want or can take the time to do during your workday. However, I will tell you that taking small, consistent actions like this will make you feel amazing and accomplished – and that’s ALL about self-love!