♫ Their habits, I confess
None can guess with the couple…♫

Lyrics and music by Sammy Cahn and Neal Hefti.

Look at your desk and office. Whose office does yours resemble?  Oscar Madison’s or Felix Unger’s? Is your desk neat and tidy or more a hodgepodge of piles of paper, old coffee cups and files stacked everywhere with food wrappers interspersed? Of course The Odd Couple accented the extreme personal differences between Oscar, who is perhaps the world’s most famous slob and Felix, the extreme clean freak, as a way to create an underlying comedic friction as the backdrop for the show.

But according to George Rains, your desk says a lot about you and your work habits.  George states that there are at least 3 reasons to keep a clean work space:

#1 A clean work space projects a Professional and Personal Image

#2 Your office reflects on the image of your firm

#3 A clean office can help maintain personal health

George is not alone in advocating for a clean and tidy workspace. Pat Heydlauff states:

According to the National Association of Professional Organizations, paper clutter is the No. 1 problem for most businesses. Studies show the average person wastes 4.3 hours per week searching for papers, which adds stress and frustration to the workplace while reducing concentration and creative thinking.

Renae Nicole states that a clean workspace reflects on the overall morale of the organization. A clean and tidy desk reflects on how someone views their job.  She also reinforces that a chaotic workspace can hinder efficiency.

So look at your desk and office.  Are you more like Felix or Oscar?  Fortunately it isn’t too late – salvation is at hand – all of us can aspire to better habits – starting today!

(if you want to take a short online test to see if you are more Felix or Oscar, click here).

(concurrently published on tips.slaw.ca)