My space
How often do you feel overwhelmed, unmotivated or unable to focus when sitting in your office? If the answer is 'often', then take a look at the state of your desk.
'Our environment often reflects what's happening in our minds, so if your desk is cluttered it's likely your mind will be too,' says Angela Wong, who runs a Melbourne-based feng shui consultancy to corporations, including those in the finance, hospitality and entertainment industries. 'Cleaning up your space helps you think more clearly, as it gets rid of stagnant, negative energy.'
Michelle Frencham, a personal assistant in the education sector, can vouch for the mental lift that comes from clearing her clutter.
'If I'm procrastinating in my job then I know there's too much on my desk,' Frencham says. 'But when my desk is clear, my thoughts are clear. I try to have on my desk only what I need for that day, anything else I keep in folders away from my desk or in an electronic version.'
According to feng shui principles, everything is made up of energy or chi. So if you have things around you that are no longer useful, such as dirty mugs, dead plants or smelly rubbish, then they'll affect how you function and how you feel, dragging your energy down.
When applying feng shui to the workplace, clutter clearing is almost always the first step involved, according to Wong. Clutter is anything you don't need and that's not serving a purpose, right now. So it's all those old research papers or reports you convince yourself you might need one day, but don't use, never have and never will.
It's the overflowing emails, piles of paper or dozens of pens in your drawer that no longer work. And it's all those computer files dumped on your desktop or in My Documents.
Frencham suggests 'Look at your desk and ask, 'What can I get rid of?' Just try it for a week, and see how you feel.'
For those who feel completely overwhelmed by the thought of tackling their piles of stuff, the 15-minute daily clean-up is highly effective in breaking through tidy-up inertia.
Try using four boxes labelled 'bin', 'give away or sell', 'store', and 'put away'. Ask two questions: Do I love it? Do I use it? Answering 'no' means let it go.
It can be tempting just to cram your stuff back into some forgotten unseen place and hope that 'out of sight is out of mind'. But according to Karen Kingston, author of Clear your clutter with feng shui, no matter where we try to hide it, clutter drags our energy down, and the longer we keep it the more it affects us.
After clutter clearing, feng shui becomes much more complex. Wong practises traditional feng shui, which involves the use of mathematical formulae to work out the 'energy map' of a place. 'Feng shui is about working out the best way to use a space,' says Wong. 'In every space there are helpful and unhelpful energies.
Feng shui helps us calculate where the good energy is and to enhance it, such as the energies relating to income, and to reduce harmful energies, such as those associated with legal issues, theft and slander.'
Frencham, who is now also a feng shui practitioner, says that her office used to have 'the worst feng shui you could imagine. Things didn't flow well, and were always going wrong, so I put cures in place to help minimise the influence of harmful energies.'
Now, with her desk in a power position (back to the wall, providing the ability to see who's coming through the door), a clear desk and the use of carefully placed cures such as a salt lamp and plants, the energy of her office has improved. 'People now really like the feel of my office and feel comfortable there,' she says.
Joining Frencham is a growing list of successful business people and organisations using feng shui as a performance-enhancing aide. These include the likes of Donald Trump, Richard Branson, ANZ Bank, Citibank and Crown Casino. 'Amongst my clients, feng shui certainly isn't considered airy fairy or weird, but a serious business tool,' says Wong.
Clear your office clutter checklist
- make it easy, choose a desk, file, or drawer with which to start
- use four boxes to sort your stuff: 'throw out', 'give away or sell', 'put away', 'store'
- clear your computer desktop of unnecessary icons or files
- delete any files that you no longer need and archive those you need infrequently, store on a CD or external hard drive
- organise any documents filed in 'My documents'
- don't get stuck by the sentimental value of an item. Simply ask: Do I love it? Do I need it?
- clear your desk at the end of each day or at least each week
- conduct an end-of-year office clutter clearing
Thea O'Connor is a health promotion consultant, writer and speaker.
Further information
Reference: June 2008, volume 78:05, p. 73 - 74
