Increasing Productivity Through an Organized Workspace

Kathy (host):

Well, hello there, and welcome back to another episode of Help My Business Is Growing, a podcast where we explore how to grow and build a business that is healthy and sustainable. I’m your host, Kathy Svetina, a fractional CFO, and founder of Newcastle Finance. We believe that everything you do in your business will eventually end up in your finances, and to get healthy finances is to have a healthy business. But how do you get there, this is where this podcast comes into help.

Kathy (host):

Keeping your space neat on top of everything that you need to do to run your business can get challenging, and aesthetics aside, clutter negatively impacts our ability to focus, think clearly, and complete our tasks. It can lead to distractions, and increased stress levels, and makes it harder to find crucial items or information when you need it.

Kathy (host):

So, how do you start decluttering your workspace? What are some of the practical organizational systems that you can use? And most importantly, how can you maintain a neat and clear workspace to improve your productivity and mental well-being?

Kathy (host):

As a quick reminder, all of the episodes on this podcast, including this one, come with timestamps for topics that we discussed, and each one has its own blog post too. You can find all the links and detailed topics in this episode’s show notes.

Kathy (host):

My guest today is Gayle Gruenberg. She is the Chief Executive Organizer of Let’s Get Organized, an award-winning organizing company located in Bergen County, New Jersey. She helps people living with chronic disorganization declutter and maintain organizing systems. She is a Certified Professional Organizer in Chronic Disorganization, a Certified Virtual Professional Organizer, and an Organizer Coach. Join us.

Kathy (host): 

Gayle, so welcome to the show.

Gayle (guest): 

Thank you so much for having me.

Kathy (host):

Thanks so much for being here. I’m super excited about this conversation because there’s going to be a lot of useful stuff for me here too. So, you know, the way we set up our office and work environment can have a pretty significant impact on the work that we do. And I’ve noticed that in myself too, that if there’s a lot of physical clutter on my desk or around me, it just has this zapping energy effect. Yes. But when things around me are nice and clean, there’s a certain ease, there’s a certain flow to my work. And obviously, there are a lot of different styles, and some people thrive in chaos. I can’t imagine that, but some do. But let’s dive right into this. I’m curious, how does the physical setup of an office impact people’s productivity?

Gayle (guest):

I agree with you 100% about having too much stuff around. It stymies people’s minds. It’s like I have a biconditional arrow about “Clear Your Clutter, Clear Your Mind.” So when you clear your mind, you clear your clutter, and it’s because a client of mine had said in a different description of organizing, “God can’t get through because the line is busy.” So I think that she’s a cool dude. So I think clutter, creativity, and productivity are like the pipe gets clogged.

Kathy (host):

And have you noticed with your clients, is there anything you know that it’s cluttered, obviously, so it is overly overwhelming to look at the clutter? But then it’s even more whelming to clear it out? Is there anything that is helpful if you find yourself in that type of situation?

Gayle (guest):

I would say, “Okay, as long as someone is committed to clearing the clutter”, because I will tell you, if I come in and sit at my desk, and there’s stuff all around, I can’t start to work until I put things where they go. So for someone who’s used to doing that, it doesn’t take a long time, and it’s easy. But for someone who has come to the point where they can’t stand it anymore, but haven’t been living or working like that for a while, my advice would be to start with one small section because it tends to build momentum. Even if it’s like a two-inch corner of a desk, at least you can see the desk, and you feel a bit of accomplishment, knowing that there’s hope for you.

Kathy (host):

There’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

Gayle (guest):

Yes, let’s say that, yes, a light at the end of the tunnel. It does build on a life of its own in that once you start, it’s like, “Oh, this feels awfully good. Let me continue.”

Kathy (host):

If you do start and say, “Okay, I want to continue this,” have you found anything that’s particularly helpful, like a system or a method that you can use to declutter? Let’s say if you have a lot of papers around, some bills hanging around somewhere, because right now, you know, a lot of people are paying those electronically, but yet you still get statements. I get those a lot. How do you start when you have that momentum built up but there’s still a lot of stuff happening? What are some of the things that you can do to make it easier on yourself?

Gayle (guest):

Well, without going into the entire process, one thing that I often either do for or with clients or advise them to do is, say you have stacks of paper on your desk. In order to start creating a system for managing those papers, you have to know what you have. Even if you take like an inch of paper or just a few papers off the one stack, what I do is I usually sit on the floor and I put a rainbow, I call it a rainbow, around myself. So I have my little stack, my source. And then I see like page one, alright, what category does this belong to? And if it means, like it might be client A, okay, so I start to make a pile for client A, and then I might have client B, or whatever it is—insurance, legal, yada, yada, yada. So you start to categorize, you’re putting like with like to start so that you see what you have, what categories they go into, and how much you have. That starts to build the framework of the system.

Kathy (host):

That’s really good. So once you have figured out these categories, is there a way that you can think about categories, or is it just a mix-and-match thing, whatever you need?

Gayle (guest):

I think it has to be customized to the needs of the individual because everybody’s brain is different and thinks of things in a different way. As I might say, I have multiple types of insurance. And just to give you a visual, the way my brain works is to have, say, a hanging folder with the main topic “Insurance.” And then within “Insurance,” I might have subfolders of subcategories like car insurance, homeowners insurance, liability, long-term care, and whatever else is needed. So essentially, I would start with a broad category and then have separate subcategories, so I know where to find what I need when I need it.

Kathy (host):

And what do you do with that? Once you categorize it, do you then reduce it even more? Some things can get shredded, and others can be digitized. What do you do with it after you categorize it?

Gayle (guest):

You’re absolutely right. Usually, when I have my rainbow around me, I might find things that are recyclable, some get shredded. So say I were to do my own home office or a small business, I would have two paper bags. One would be for recycling, and one would be for shredding. As I sort, I figure out, “Alright, well, this is a little scrap of paper with a note, I don’t need this anymore. Recycle. Oh, it’s an old bill, I can shred it.” And then anything I might need to keep will have its category.

Kathy (host):

And how do you make that decision? I’ll tell you this because I think I live with a couple of hoarders in my house. So everything is important, and we all know that if everything is important, even in paperwork, then nothing’s important because you can’t find anything, even if you categorize it, right? So how do you make that distinction between what’s truly important and what you can let go of?

Gayle (guest):

That’s a great question. So if we were talking about paper, for instance, and paper is hard, paper and photos are the most difficult things to organize because each minuscule part of a millimeter of an item is a decision, and that’s hard. Many people have trouble with the decision process. So what I suggest is setting a few criteria or rules. If it’s paper that supports your business, and you might need to keep it as a receipt, for instance, or it’s part of a capitalized expenditure for your home that becomes part of the basis of the house, that’s probably a record you need to keep. Vital documents, something very important like your passport, birth certificate, death certificate, or marriage certificate, certainly keep those. Things you don’t need to substantiate any kind of a claim, you could probably easily part with more regularly, like older bills or notes to yourself.

Kathy (host):

And especially in the business sense, have you found what is the easiest way to digitize certain paperwork? Do you use a certain tool? Like I know there’s a lot of stuff out there where you can actually take a picture of it, and it will scan it, so it’s not just the pictures, an actual scan? Have you noticed that there’s something that is particularly useful, especially in the sense of digitizing the type of paperwork in the business sense?

Gayle (guest):

Well, I’m glad you asked that. That’s actually something that I, as I am in my mid-50s, I still have a foot in two camps. So I do have paper and I do have digital. So I am building that part of my expertise. I know I have not yet used a ScanSnap, I think it’s a Fujitsu ScanSnap, but I would really like to so I can have it with me to clients and even use it myself. My own printer is one of those all-in-one things, so sometimes I can scan with that and have it digitized onto my computer. And I have an app called CamScanner, and there are others out there. Say I’m on the fly, and I have a few items that I need to scan and digitize, I will just like you said, take a picture of it, and it goes into CamScanner. If I need it on my computer, I can AirDrop it, and I find that very convenient.

Kathy (host):

Yeah, that’s a good idea. I have tried very hard to eliminate my footprint when it comes to paperwork. And everything essentially lives on the computer. But there it’s really hard because it’s so much easier to print something out and actually see it like an actual paper. There’s something about the physical paper that makes it easier. I have tried to put it on my Kindle. I have one of those big scribe candles. At this point, it’s still not the same; it is a very different feel to it.

Gayle (guest):

I just learned a word from an audiobook I was listening to the other day. I hope I don’t say it wrong. It’s either “psychometric” or “psychometry.” This book is about a person who touches books and feels the feelings within the book. So I’m really sparked by that because in organizing, we have something called “tactile sympathy.” Yeah. So I want to look into that a bit more because the act of touching really is there’s the whole hands-brain connection. So I want to learn more about that.

Kathy (host):

Yeah, that’s definitely something that I want to learn more about too. We’ve focused so far on a lot of the paper stuff, but the paper is just one part of the clutter, right? There are other things that happen, especially in the business environment. You might have a bunch of books sitting around; you might have a lot of office supplies or whatever it might be, especially if you’re a smaller business and you don’t have the space to move into a bigger office or maybe if you’re working from home and can’t move into a bigger space. What are some of the things that you can do, so that you only have essentials, but you still don’t feel like you’re missing something? Is there anything that you find that’s particularly helpful?

Gayle (guest):

Well, that’s a really, really great question. I have a few thoughts. And I don’t know if we’re going to use our video, but I’m more than happy to show you my bookshelves.

Kathy (host):

So I will try to narrate this. So Gayle is right now, she told me, has this beautiful white bookcase that she has that’s absolutely flawlessly organized. And I am jealous as I’m looking at it.

Gayle (guest):

Well, I will tell you, so one of the techniques, the first thing that came to mind was to be ruthless. Because this is my home office, I work out of my space in my bedroom. But before we moved, and we’ve only been here about a little bit over a year, I had a much larger book collection. And I said, “Okay, I’m going to have much less space in my new place. What’s going to make the cut?” Yeah, so I had to be ruthless in what I wanted to keep as a physical book, for instance, and office supplies or whatever it was just to really think and decide what do I need near me? What do I need in hardcopy? What do I actually use? What’s extraneous? What’s important to me, because these are my business books, but I do have another bookcase with personal books. What’s most meaningful to me? What will I go back to and access again? So I really had to be discerning in what I kept and took with me versus what I passed on to another owner. And there’s also the proximity thought, especially for things like office supplies and desk supplies and things like that. Anything you need to use regularly on a daily basis should be within your arm’s length workspace. And anything you don’t need quite so often can be stored further away. So it’s sort of like concentric circles or layers. If there’s a closet and an extra closet where you can store additional supplies, great. If not, then definitely first aside, what can you not live without?

Kathy (host):

Yeah, and you also cannot see this as a listener, but behind me, I have this pretty big cabinet. And Gayle, there’s a lot of stuff in there. And this piece of furniture was picked particularly because, well, two reasons. One, because it looks nice as my Zoom background, and two is because there’s so much storage behind there. And if I were to open that, you would see that there are a lot of supplies in there. I create a lot of content, and there are also all my Legos in there as well because I use Legos in my content. That’s so cool. So there’s so much storage in there. But when I was picking out furniture for this particular office, it was picked with a particular thing in mind: where am I going to store stuff? And how am I going to store it? Keep in mind that, you know, for me, it was because I wasn’t growing into this office, I actually came in because I liked the space. And I really needed it. And I actually bought the furniture specifically for the space. But I know that it would probably get really hard if you are moving to the space already, and you have to migrate what you’ve had before, right? So then you have to do a lot of inventory, what you have, what you don’t have, what solutions you need, right?

Gayle (guest):

Yes, it’s about evaluating what works. And just as you said, if you’re bringing items with you, some things may not work in a new space the way they did in an older space. So it might be a cost-saving thing to maybe use a piece that might have been in your old office in a different place and maybe swap something else in that might fit your workspace now a bit better. I was in a lady’s home the other day, and she had chairs. And she’s like, “This was wonderful in my old house, but it doesn’t fit over here.” So we thought, “Alright, well, what if we put it in a different room?” Yeah, that would be a great solution.

Gayle (guest):

Well, I had an image on another computer of a funk suede desktop.

Kathy (host):

Oh, I love that.

Gayle (guest):

Yes, me too. If I can probably find it somewhere if you want me to send it to you. But I thought it was brilliant because I didn’t know you could finish a desktop. But if you do, then you know that you can place things that, like you said, make you happy in certain parts of your desk so that they inspire your productivity and creativity. And as you said, they just make you feel good when you sit down to work. So you want to use that space because it’s fun and invigorating, comfortable.

Kathy (host):

Do you have any suggestions for someone who wants to make their workspace their work environment a little bit more comfortable and more inviting, more homey, so to speak? What are some of the things that they should be thinking through when they’re making those decisions?

Gayle (guest):

My first impulse would be to start fresh, if possible. So if it’s possible to start with a clear room, with your foundation pieces in place first, then you’re basically painting on a fresh palette. So you have your anchors: your desk, your chair, your bookcase, or whatever. And then you can start to add the things that really make you happy or inspire you with intentional placement. Saying, “I’m putting this here because I want to look at it when I’m creating my content,” or whatever it is, like this is my Touchstone, so to speak. Then just put into place the items that are most welcoming, and find other homes for things that don’t fit that vision.

Kathy (host):

When I was putting my office together, I spent way too many hours on Pinterest and Instagram and all these things. It can be a rabbit hole that you go down through. Then you’re like, “Oh, I like all the storage stuff. Maybe I will like to organize my house too.” Yeah. So if someone is looking for inspiration, what would you tell them so that they don’t go into this rabbit hole of hours and hours and hours of figuring out what is their perfect space?

Gayle (guest):

Oh, yes, that’s great. There is no perfect space. It could be, “Does it work for you, too?” Does it fit your need? And like there is a concept of being organized enough. And even if it doesn’t look like a Pinterest board or a magazine, it’s okay. As long as the system is working for the person who’s using it, that’s plenty. You don’t have to go further than that.

Kathy (host):

I really like that. And I would say that figuring out whether it’s working for you or not, and you tell me this, since you’re the expert in this, if you have this expectation that it’s going to be perfect, so to speak, from the beginning, it’s probably going to be a fail, right? I think it’s more of continuous feedback of what do you want to change. How do you make it better, right?

Gayle (guest):

Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s even part of my seven-step process of how I organize that I’ve just codified, but to simplify it, yes. The last step in the process is coach, which is basically like, what have we learned? What bubbled up? What works, and what doesn’t? What do we tweak? And then like you said, it’s just, it’s a loop, we just keep going and refining and tweaking, as needs change, and systems need to be created or curtailed. It’s a never-ending journey.

Kathy (host):

It’s great that you mentioned the seven-step process because I find it very fascinating. I’m a process and systems have a person. Can you tell us more about this process? Because I think this is going to be really valuable to someone who has a brain like myself. It’s like, okay, I understand this. But what is the process? Like, what is step one? What is step two? Can you walk us through that?

Gayle (guest):

Sure. The first two processes involve, say, I were to be interviewing a client, it involves a lot of talking, okay? It’s the client talks, I listen and ask questions. It’s evaluating, like, why do you want to get organized? What’s your “why,” like Simon Sinek says? What is the ultimate reason for wanting to get organized? And then the second part is, let’s figure out what are your strengths. What are your challenges, let’s play to your strengths and mitigate your challenges. Then we get to clear a space, for instance, and that’s the fun part. That’s like the first action, like, “Oh yeah, I start fresh.” Then we categorize and figure out what we have, what we like, and see how much there is of something. And then we contain it, then we maintain it. And then we do it to sort of do that feedback loop of “Okay, this is now working, I’m living with this for a little while, are working with this for a little while. This over here was not working so great. So let me try this little change.” And that’s kind of the process, continually re-evaluating.

Kathy (host):

When you said “containing,” the process of containing, are we talking about storage solutions? Are we talking about furniture, all of the above?

Gayle (guest):

All of the above. And the process could even, it might sound a little esoteric, it could extend to not just stuff, it could be relationships, it could be finances. I’m still surprised that people are balancing their businesses on spreadsheets rather than using something like QuickBooks, which could be the container.

Kathy (host):

Yeah. And you touched on the relationships. And I have to ask about this because I’m curious, what do you mean about containing relationships?

Gayle (guest):

It could be a bit about boundary setting, okay? And you’d want to, like from an organizing system standpoint, you’d be weeding out the relationships in your world, your life that doesn’t necessarily benefit you. For instance, if you have a toxic relationship with a boss or an underling, to keep it in the business realm, you might want to maintain boundaries about the amount of time you spend with that person, the method of communication, frequency of communication, and just really figure out like, what kind of a system can I implement so that we are both getting the best out of this relationship?

Kathy (host):

So you’re not just organizing stuff, but you’re also organizing what I’m hearing is you’re organizing the way how you’re working in other aspects of your life as well. Yeah. So it’s more of a, I think of it more as a holistic approach. Yes, there’s just stuff, correct?

Gayle (guest):

Absolutely. There’s so much coaching and consulting involved. It’s never about the stuff in organizing.

Kathy (host):

And you can see that there’s this interesting show out there. I think it’s still running. It’s called “Hoarders.” And the fascinating thing about that show is that so much of the stuff that we own and though we have, we put so much emotional value into this, and it’s really never about the stuff, it’s more about the feelings that you have around stuff.

Gayle (guest):

Absolutely. And what it means to you and the memories and the person who gave it to you or, yeah, yeah.

Kathy (host):

And to be digging into the business world, I think it’s also, it could be that you might find that a lot of it is not valuable right now. But it could be, “Oh, I’m gonna find it valuable later on, and I want to keep it.” Or there are certain things that you obviously have to keep because of compliance issues and all that stuff. But the rest of it, it really could be, “Why are you so attached to this particular item?” I mean, I have a lot of items in my office that I’m attached to, and I don’t see myself getting rid of. But one thing that I have figured out is how do I actually display them versus hide them in a cabinet closet somewhere?

Gayle (guest):

Yes. Totally on board with that because if you’re holding on to something that you really love, you might as well, like you said, display it and use it and enjoy it. Because it’s just going to collect dust if it’s sitting unused somewhere. And what you brought to mind for me was sometimes we hold on to things, especially in the business world, that define us. We are a certain persona. And those items support that persona. And sometimes, if, say, somebody retires, they might hold on to all of that because they were in that career for such a long time.

Kathy (host):

Yeah, that’s true. Gayle, you were so helpful with this. You gave us so many ideas. But every single episode, we end with this one question. And that is, if someone right now has an office that needs decluttering, and especially the space that they have around them is not making them as productive and as happy as it should be, what is the one step that they can take in the next week or two to get them closer to the space that they really enjoy being in?

Gayle (guest):

I would say my most salient bit of advice for anyone wanting to start an organizing project is just start. It doesn’t matter where you start, just start. And one of the techniques that we use in chronic disorganization, and I did not create this, I borrowed it from another organizer who is the guru of chronic disorganization. She took a paper towel tube and put it up to her eye, and she showed her clients, like, “Okay, this is where your sight is. Start there.” And then just let it take on a life of its own.

Kathy (host):

I love that. It’s very focused. So Gayle, where can people find you?

Gayle (guest):

The best place is the website for Let’s Get Organized, which is lgorganized.com.

Kathy (host):

Thank you so much for this conversation, Gayle. Super excited that you did that. And it was very, very helpful.

Gayle (guest):

I’m so glad to be of service. Thank you.

Kathy (host):

Thanks so much for joining us on today’s episode, and I hope that you picked up some helpful tips on clearing clutter and creating intentional work environments. Also, if you love this episode, you can find all the timestamps, show notes, blog posts, and links on the website newcastlefinance.us/podcast. And before I go, as always, I do have a favor to ask. If you are listening to this on Apple Podcasts, if you could please go to the show and tap the number of stars that you think the show deserves. Because this helps other people find it and benefit from it as well. Thanks so much. Until next time.