Show me your desk, and I can tell you who you are - Aftenposten

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papers flowing. Pink and yellow post-it notes. Plastic Flowers. A dirty plate and fork. A calendar showing the month of June. Empty plastic bottles.

Stine Karin Håtuft, general manager at Oslo Theatre Centre, looking dejected at their desk.

Then she rolls office chair over to the lunch table right behind her, where new stacks of papers have begun to pile up. Håtuft suffer from mild throw phobia, love to be surrounded by things and juggling strategic planning, budgets, projects and application processes – simultaneously.

– When I’ll find something, I lift all the stacks one by one. Now I have developed a system of post-it notes. When it gets busiest, the post-it notes all over the walls here. Sometimes I look like a mad here. But usually I know where things are, I would say, says Håtuft.

Rot signals low quality

How your desk looks, says more about you than you might think.

For example, signal clutter that you do not control – even if you know exactly where things are, says Carole Skjæveland, who has a doctorate in psychology architecture.

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What office desk about you?

Join into Helga Pedersen (Labour) mess cabinets.

- There is a rich body of research showing that people attach to you many astonishing features based on how you and your surroundings look like. Patients considering such physician competence by how messy waiting room. So it is with the office. Do you have a lot of clutter on your desk will your colleagues unconsciously attribute to negative traits, says Skjæveland.

Conversely, signaling an extremely tidy office control, quality and reliability.

– Those who have very neat might want to send a message that they have everything under control and have much profit, he said.

When

longer in his career

At the same time that some are more likely to keep your desk tidy than others. It says a specialist in occupational and organizational psychology, Espen Skorstad.

– “Conscientiousness,” as it is commonly called, is considered one of the five basic personality traits. Those who score high on this in personality tests, structured, disciplined and good at prioritizing. Imagine the structured worker with tabs on the desk and a clear plan for the work day, says Skorstad.

Personality Research shows that how neat you are in the office, can reveal how well you will do on the job.

– No matter what profession you are watching, research shows that the structured often are high performing. I would assume that they also do a faster career. It is because they are keen to do what they have committed. While the advantage of being less strxukturert is that you are more likely to take things on the fly and perhaps also more creative.

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Chaos, creativity

Erik Lerdahl, professor of creativity, is in no doubt about what he thinks about a desk where not so much as a sheet is in the wrong place.

– I probably would not have liked to have him or her in a creative workshop, no.

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Messy or neat office

How do you have it in your office, you can often indicate how you wish to appear.

- I do not know about the research that shows that those messy is more creative. But if you absolutely can not handle clutter and chaos for a while, ready to not being particularly creative, since it’s about to break up the existing ones. While you need a certain structure so it does not only becomes chaos.

A messy desk can also be a sign of deep concentration, think Lerdahl.

– It may overflow with sketches, images and ideas in a phase where you need a lot of inspiration and work intensively with anything. And then one takes both a mental and physical cleaning job afterwards. The problem is when the clutter becomes static. An office it is impossible to get into, is not particularly creative, it is more a disease.

must clean up after two hours

As the largest IT company, Evry, switched offices, employees had to also learn how to clean.

company has now introduced rules on the office desk should always be neat.

– If the employee leaves his desk for more than two hours, they need to clear out everything from your desk, including PC, keyboard and personal belongings, says Trude Sundblad.

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Searching for future office

– We are going to experience a high degree of innovation and ingenuity in office solutions, says psychologist architecture.

She currently rates the employees in Evry on how to keep it neat-both on your PC and on your desk.

– Feedback so far has been positive. People have come to me and said that they think that the working environment is much nicer now when there is clutter everywhere, says Sundblad.

Such courses liver Company PEP Norway to keep. General Manager Jojo Bough Holst says that everything that is promoting the desk is a potential source of disruption.

– You’re maybe working on something, so you see the report you should have returned. Suddenly you have canceled your letter you were writing and raised you from the desk. Clutter is interruptions. Too much paperwork and noise around you makes you less creative and productive, says Holst.

Advances wet wipe

Large Sjau after finished work, just Stine Karin Håtuft working methods.

– Look here! she says, and pulls out a wipe from a shelf at the lunch table.

– Sometimes I just come in here, retrieve them and take a big cleaning. Certainly after such a run-up as I am in the midst of now, she says.

Had she done a better job if the desk was neat? I think she is not.

– I have always attracted me jobs where there has been a plan ready for work. That means I can tolerate that things are not as structured. The most important thing is that I have the expertise and get things done. And what do I get, even though it may sometimes take a little longer.