What I learned from my dislike of dusting
As I mentioned in my last blog post, housework boosts my productivity at work. However, it wasn’t always like this.
Housework used to be a source of stress and definitely not something I enjoyed. I especially dreaded dusting.
Then I realised that my set up was wrong and was making things more difficult. I got rid of the glass TV cabinet that always looked dusty even when I had just cleaned it. I made sure that most of my furniture had practical storage solutions, like closed cabinets and drawers, that kept dust away from my belongings. And I got rid of a bunch of things to reduce the amount of cleaning required in the first place.
This helped enormously and cleaning became so much quicker and easier. I started to enjoy housework, which further helped in ensuring I got it done.
Doing less to achieve more
As I have been exploring productivity on this blog, I’ve started to think about how this lesson I learned at home can be applied in the workplace.
I am seeking an answer to the following question:
How can we simplify our work to improve corporate performance AND employees’ wellbeing?
I believe we need to start by identifying and being honest about the things that are keeping us busy but not necessarily helping us achieve the organisation’s mission.
Some of the common causes of this ‘excessive busy-ness’ are:
lack of clarity and focus
lack of discipline (once the focus is made clear)
overcommitment
inflexibility
excessive oversight.
At the operational level, the above often result in:
excessive workloads
excessive or overcomplicated processes
excessive or ineffective meetings, email and other communication tools
ultimately, an environment with decreased job satisfaction, talent retention and employee wellbeing.
At least this is what I’ve observed in my two decades of working in and consulting various organisations…in addition to my (borderline embarrassing) passion for reading and thinking about self-improvement and organisational behaviour.
I will be exploring possible ‘corporate decluttering’ solutions in future posts. For now, I urge you to think about what you can simplify or declutter in your workplace to make time for the things that really matter and help you get closer to achieving organisational objectives.
Any thoughts?
If you have additional thoughts about the causes of ‘corporate clutter’ and possible solutions you’d like me to explore, please get in touch.
Thanks for your time.