Spring has sprung. The weather is becoming milder and people are ready for a fresh start.

For many, spring cleaning is a ritual they take on each year to clean their homes to start anew. Though it does not currently feel like spring in the Northeast United States, it is still a good time to look at cleaning through some different things:

Your Desk: Over time, our desks become cluttered with paper and other items. Many times, we can’t actually see our desktops. This can make it difficult to find the information we need or to feel in control.

Take a look at your desk. Go through the papers on your desk and organize them, by project or other category. For papers from old projects, either file them away if you still need to reference them in the future or throw them out if they no longer have any value to you. For current projects, look through the papers that are currently needed and put them into appropriate folders that can be easily accessed. Papers that are not currently needed, but need to be available for reference should be filed in a place that you can access them when needed. The same can be done for other information that you need to reference.

Another idea is to scan documents and create digital files of documents that you do not need to have a physical copy of. This can help to reduce the amount of paper you keep.

A cleaner desk will make it easier and faster to access the information you need and will keep you from being distracted by information that does not serve any value right now.

Your E-Mail: Most of us received more e-mails each day than we can reasonably process during the day. This leads to an ever-increasing inbox that becomes harder to manage. The large number of unopened e-mail messages continues to eat at us as unfinished work. Large inboxes also makes in more likely to have an important e-mail message slip through the cracks and not responded to.

To start cleaning your e-mail inbox, identify e-mails you receive from distribution lists that are not of value to you. Most automated e-mail distributions allow you to “unsubscribe” from the list. Unsubscribe from any distribution lists that you no longer want to receive e-mails from. For e-mails you want to continue receiving but don’t need to read or respond to immediately, set up filters to move those e-mails to a folder for future reference. Filters can be configured to identify an e-mail sender or keyword and automatically move the e-mail to a designated folder. Most e-mail client software supports the use of filters. You can set up different folders for different types of e-mails. By setting up filters, certain e-mails will not appear in your inbox and will make your inbox easier to go through and allow you to address the most important e-mails. You can then designate times to review the other folders when it is convenient for you. I recently went through this exercise and found that it has saved me much time and aggravation.

Your Calendar: Our calendars get quickly filled with meetings, presentations, and other commitments. This leads to less time allocated to the work that is most important for our jobs and our personal lives.

Take a look at your calendar. Are there meeting that you do not need to attend? If so, politely decline the meeting. Are there meetings that are scheduled for longer than is necessary? See if those one-hour meetings can be cut down to a half-hour or even 15 minutes. Identify any other meetings that can be cancelled or reschedule if they are not going to produce the necessary value.

Then, look over your calendar and set up time blocks to perform certain work, such as creating reports or for planning. Blocking this time will make it easier to actually get this work done, especially for time sensitive work you need to finish.

These simple steps will help you become more efficient and productive with your time. Share any other tips for your spring cleaning.