There are lots of ways to organize your office and improve productivity, but have you thought about the benefits of organizing with color?
According to Smead, using color as an organizational tool is one of the most effective ways to save time and be more productive. We instinctively recognize colors and associate meaning to them far faster than we can read text. By applying this principle to your daily work processes, you can work effectively and efficiently.
Color-coding your organizational process at work can be a visual way to give yourself cues and prompts to keep on top of the flow of work into your space. The things you know and feel about color can be used to designate specific work tasks or needs. For example, think about red—it’s hot and often associated with power, energy, even movement. That makes it a great pairing for things that are urgent and must be done right away.
Don’t Just be Colorful – be Purposeful with Color
Color also enhances the function of your workspace when it has purpose. The goal is not to be colorful, but to be purposeful with color. Here’s how to add meaningful color to your office:
- Determine the major categories or groupings of information you use throughout your workday.
- Assign a particular color to each grouping. For example, assign red files for your To-Do Now items, green for your To-Do Later items. You can also consider assigning color to each type of work you do. For example, red for sales activity, green for client activity, yellow for administrative tasks, blue for team, etc..
- Use colored filing supplies to contain the materials for each grouping.
- Consider using color-coding to organize your calendar – at quick glance you can see how your time is allocated when you color code your appointments by the type of work they involve.
The Benefits of Organizing with Color
Adding color will help you to save time in both retrieving and filing information. Likewise, if you are working on several projects at the same time, assigning a different color project file for each one will make fast work of finding the one you need. The whole reason color-coding works is that it allows you to visually and quickly identify items by category.
Adding even a little color to your office is sure to improve not only function at work but is likely to lower your stress. You feel better when you can quickly locate what you need and can spend your time on tasks instead of looking for things.
What other ways can you use color? The infographic below from Quill could inspire some ideas.
If you decide to add some color to your organizational system, let us know how we can help!
