A tidy workspace: what does it mean for your quality of work?

Living in chaos impedes effective work, healthy productivity, and even your rest. Even the so-called ‘artistic mess’ is, in fact, an organized structure where all items have their place, even the most unorthodox ones. Besides facilitating full concentration and boosting productivity, a tidy space helps lower stress, fosters well-being, and aids creative thinking. That’s why here at Oakywood we keep working on even more effective solutions for organizing your workspace.

Disastrous effects of workplace mess

The issue of keeping your office tidy goes far beyond being simply an aesthetic or organizational matter. The space we work in influences the quality of our work as well as our mental state. Scientists from the Princeton University Neuroscience Institute used fMRI results to determine that the human brain likes order, whilst the sight of mess and disorganization depletes our cognitive resources at a faster rate. Other research has shown that people overwhelmed by clutter are more prone to procrastination and avoidance.

Working in a messy and chaotic place has a few other disadvantages:

• Clutter lowers our ability to concentrate – items unrelated to work can divert our attention away from the task at hand and force our brain to re engage with work again and again – ultimately decreasing productivity;
• Fumbling to find important things and essential documents wastes precious time and delays completing them;
• A tendency to miss deadlines and entire tasks increases, and so do problems with setting and sticking to priorities;
• Mess can overstimulate our senses and make it more difficult for our brain to process information; mental fatigue interferes with clear, creative thinking, weakens cognitive functions, and hinders our problem-solving and decision-making skills;
• Workspace chaos not only escalates stress and anxiety, it also spikes our cortisol levels – living in this state for a prolonged time increases the risk of developing depression and anxiety;
• Lack of organization can cause us to feel like we are losing control and our confidence, while poor concentration and inability to complete tasks and meet deadlines have an adverse effect on our self-worth.

Advantages of a tidy office

Effective organization of your workspace opens the door to productivity. Keeping your desk orderly and somehow structured can help you feel calmer and more settled, especially when tailored to your needs. It helps lower stress which, when experienced chronically, causes us to go into survival mode - a complete antithesis to creativity. Eliminating visual distractions and creating an aesthetically pleasing, comforting workspace allows us to redirect our attention to our tasks, clears the mind, and fosters focus and creative thinking.

A tidy workspace also helps us to manage our time and prioritize more effectively. When everything has its place and your most needed items are within reach, we don’t waste energy on unnecessary actions and can pay our full attention to the tasks at hand. This makes work much more optimized, increasing our satisfaction, and helping us regain control of the situation so we can improve both our productivity and the work-life balance.

A new dimension to organization: modular drawers

Our main goal here at Oakywood is to create solutions that help you effectively organize and optimize your workspace. At the same time, we are passionate about delivering refined, unique aesthetics - inseparable from functionality and comfort of use. We work tirelessly to make our products not only aesthetically harmonious but also complement each other practically. When we designed our cult-favorite desk shelf, we knew it could use accessories to organize the additional desk space underneath. Today we proudly bring you our newest modular drawers.

The steel base comes in two sizes with four kinds of wooden modules which allows you to create your own construction tailored to the size of your desk and your individual needs. Choose between deep or shallow, big or small inserts and connect them at will. The standard desk shelf can accommodate two large drawers in the space beneath.

Furthermore, the base is strong and sturdy enough to hold heavier items - rest assured the drawers will stay in place while opening and closing.

We have also created a pen organizer (composed of 5 elements) to neatly fit in the drawers. You can use each element separately or combine them together - to fill out the smaller drawer. This works great with shallow drawers which can be dedicated to hold your writing utensils.

Modular drawers are a way to perfectly organize your desk using all available space, and create a pleasing arrangement that limits distractions and promotes focus. We hope this helps you reach the peak of healthy productivity - without unnecessary stress and overstimulation.