Your project teams seem to have all the right pieces—team members with technical proficiency, good internal communication, an organized project manager—but something still isn’t quite right. Your team still struggles to get projects done on time and isn’t as productive as it could be. What’s going on here? It might have something to do with your physical work environment.

I’m a big fan of using the Japanese technique of 5S to improve productivity with my project teams. 5S is a way to get your workspace organized so that your environment is set up in a way that will best improve your productivity and efficiency. Do these tasks in the following order to organize your workspace.

1. Sort 

This means going through and getting rid of things you don’t use. You can also remove those items in your workspace that you don’t need right at your fingertips. Though it may seem like a trivial detail, the amount of visual clutter in your work area impacts your ability to concentrate on the task at hand and can subtly affect your sense of feeling stressed. A clean, organized environment helps you maintain a calm and focused mental state, which is the first step toward increasing your productivity.

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