Prevent The Impact Of A Disorganized Workspace On Productivity with 5S

One of the things you must have learned during this pandemic was the impact of disorganized workspace on employee’s health and productivity. What can you do as a leader to help?

Recently, a journalist posted a picture of Instagram revealing how her “zoom background” looked like (seems neat and organized), vs. how the full picture, her entire living room looked like: a total mess. You probably have noticed your employees more distracted and more stressed. Workspace disorganization is also a reason why many employees don’t want to turn their cameras on, which is highly recommended to improve online communication.

The book “Rewire your brain” explains that a more organized environment helps you focus on what needs to be done at the present moment and avoid distractions. “Chronic disorganization is a state of mental condition. We are too much associated with our environment. Keeping our things organized keeps our mind free from the thought of searching them”.

Other Psychology studies show that a cluttered or disorganized home or workspace impacts your physical health. A cluttered home produces fire hazards, dust, and mold. It is also related to excess weight, personal relationships and has an impact on your mental health. Your disorganization, unfinished projects, and piles of “to-dos” may be contributing to your stress and depression.

Recommended For You

Implement the 5S methodology

When spending more time at home, you would think you had had more time to clean and organize. It turns out that the organization is more challenging to maintain instead, with more people spending more time at home and less personal and professional boundaries.

The problem is, storing unneeded items is always expensive. You need: physical space, insurance for storage, a maintenance schedule to keep the items in good shape, regular checks to keep the inventory updated. And these are just some of the expenses you may incur. You also have more delays, errors, and the highest cost of all is the cost of distracting and stressing you and those around you.

Toyota developed the Just in Time (JIT) system to ensure you have stock only when needed and the 5S method to keep lean workplaces. You can apply the same principles to help your employees keep their home-office in check.

What can you do to reduce the chaos?

Share some tips with your employees on how to declutter their home by applying 5S. Sort is the first step of the 5S method applied by Toyota. It’s time to sort what you need from what you don’t need.

Let’s say you have a home office. What do you need there? Which items do you usually use? How many items do you keep just in case, like documents or flyers? Do you have toys that belong to your kids, empty cups or even clothes? Do you have old hardware that is no longer in use? To avoid wasting precious time and money, you should quickly find the items you need, where you need them when you need them.

This sorting is not only physical but also virtual. If you are using your computer right now, how many sites do you have open? Aren’t they consuming your computer’s memory? How many are you actually consulting currently? How many emails do you have unread? How many of them are actually spam? Check them now.

Opening lots of websites at the same time or taking documents out of the drawer and leaving them out there, just in case, because “I may need it” is time-consuming, space-consuming and distracting in the long term. 5S teaches us to have what you will use only and store them or remove them once used. 

Go around your office, workstation or even the kitchen and the living room. Check all the desks, tables, boxes, trays, shelves, drawers and cabinets, under or on top of machines, under the desks. Do you see unneeded items?

Try to set a specific temporary spot (you can even mark it with masking tape) where you will put all the items that, at first, you think you don’t need.

Take pictures of the current state and compare later after you get rid of all the unneeded.

Now try to do a needed-not-needed check (see Image 1).

Needed items

Are there any items you think you may need it in the future? Think again. Do you REALLY need them? Are they in the right place? Or should they be placed in another room? The go no-go rule varies based on the product type, but you can think that you won’t need it any time soon if you haven’t used it in the last year. Maybe the item is in good condition, and you don’t want to throw it away. You may store it in the attic, or a shared area drawer, or even in offsite storage as you won’t need it soon. You may want to give it to someone else that needs it the most.

Broken items

You need to define if any machines, tools, clothes, or equipment that are broken, damaged, or not in good condition are still useful and or repairable. If you can get the thing fixed, label it with the “DO NOT USE – TO BE REPAIRED” tag, including the date when you found it broken, to avoid other people using it. It is great to have a standard tag for this situation in places where broken items are business as usual, such as workshops or maintenance shops.

Obsolete items

You will find things that you don’t need anymore. These are the ones that have a due date, like food or chemical components. It could also be a component or tool that is no longer in use. Some obsolete items may not help you, but maybe useful to someone else, so before trashing them, make sure nobody else needs them. If they are not required, you can either throw them away, donate them, or sell them. Helpful tip: don’t leave the item visible “just in case.” If possible, go back to the first step to challenge the need. In case you still want to keep it, store it and label it. You don’t want to see them every day, but you don’t forget about them either.

Too many

Last but not least, I urge you to define what is the right number of items that you can consider “needed.” Mainly consumables, but also tools, instruments, or even pens in the office or silverware in the kitchen. Have you ever wondered why do you have on your desk more than one blue pen? Why do you have so many tools of the same type and size in the toolbox? Here it is a good practice to estimate how many you and your team use every day and define together a safety stock. Also, consider what the cost of the item itself is. What is the price of not having it at the right time? What if you run out of it? Is this an operating room where you have a life in danger? Do you have the warehouse close?

What’s next

From now on, every time you use an item, decide right away what to do with it. Think about receipts, post-its, clothes, tools, anything. Have you already used it and you don’t need it anymore? Is it just a distracting promo? Eliminate it right away and 5S your life. If you and your employees learn to apply these tips at home, they will, later on, apply the same behaviors at work.