How to Declutter Every Aspect of Your Work Life

Today's blog post is based on a podcast from The Art of Manliness and ties in with similar posts from last week:

When you think about decluttering, you probably think about your home life, and cleaning out your junk drawer and closets. But there are also ways to declutter your work life and tidy up both its physical and digital aspects. 

My guest today explains the art of practicing minimalism in your professional life in a book he co-authored with organizing expert Marie Kondo. His name is Scott Soneshein, he’s a professor of business and management, and his book is Joy at Work. Scott and I begin our conversation by unpacking the benefits of keeping your work life neat and tidy, and then move into how to do this in regards to your physical workspace. Scott shares three questions to ask yourself when you declutter your office to help you decide which items to keep and which to throw away. We also take a useful aside into how to throw away your children’s artwork with less guilt. We then move into how to declutter your digital life by cleaning up your email inbox and smartphone. We end our discussion with several areas you may not think of in terms of clutter, but probably need some tidying up: your activities, decisions, network, and meetings.

Here are the highlights from the podcast:

• The benefits of keeping your work life tidy 
• How to prevent tidying from becoming just another procrastination tool
• Tips for organizing your physical office space 
• Dealing with kids’ sentimental crafts and artwork 
• How can you keep paperwork neat and tidy?
• How has digital clutter changed the tidying game?
• Managing your overloaded email inbox 
• What is “activity clutter”?
• Can you declutter your decisions?
• How can you tidy your networking?
• Making meetings better

How overloaded is your email box? Apparently the record is 4.2 million emails! I'm far from that...I have one in my work email box for a blog post idea that I need to forward to my personal email and I have a total of two between all of my personal emails and those are for bills that I need to verify before deleting the emails.

This was an interesting podcast. Go check it out!

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