None of us are alone in the world. We have family, near and far-flung relatives, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, business contacts, suppliers, the people working in the shops we frequent, social circles, fleeting holiday acquaintances, and the guy who cleans the gutters once a year.

All those people will undoubtedly end up on lists of some kind, be it as a contact on your phone, in an agenda, a spreadsheet or a private database, in paper format or on google contacts, on your office computer or your private phone or blackberry. And that is without taking into account all manner of social media: count your blessings in the shape of facebook friends, twitter followers, Instagram or youtube subscribers, you get the picture!

One of the issues pertaining to decluttering a private home concerns the fact that usually more than one person is living in a home. Whenever one person comes to the conclusion that this space is too full, contains too much clutter, feels crowded or simply needs a good overhaul, chances are that the other person(s) sharing the space have a different opinion on at least part of their space.

This is why it’s important to make a clear distinction between what I would tentatively label ‘personal’ space and ‘shared’ space.

Often it’s assumed the physical location in the same office leads to more collaboration and synergy. Unsurprisingly, that is not always the case! You may also have noticed that sometimes things don’t run quite as efficiently as they are made out to be. There is more to sharing an office than simply sitting in the same space: quite besides the fact that personalities have to match, the physical layout and practical arrangements of the office space can make a huge difference.

For this example, let’s imagine a room that seats three people: a boss-type person (let’s call her Angela) who kind of supervises the other two, both working for her, but on slightly different, if connected functions: Bert is a PA who works for Angela and two others elsewhere, and Cindy is an HR person and project manager.

A lot of time is lost simply because we cannot find what we are looking for. That goes especially when it comes to things we take with us on many occasions, like cell phones, keys, agendas, personal items, a wallet or purse, train pass, and the likes. Just think about how often you take those out of pockets or bags and where they usually end up. Well, the term ‘usually’ is used very freely here, of course: as a matter of fact these are exactly the items that end up all over the place, wherever is convenient at the time, and why we always have to look for them…

How do you start your day as a businessperson? I suppose most of us – especially if you are self-employed and working from a home office – are likely to simply fire up the computer and get going. Right? It may not come as a surprise to hear that this may not be the most efficient way of starting out, we all have had those days that were full of activity and didn’t really go the way we expected them to go.

But then, what did we expect in the first place? Did you have any expectations in the morning. I suspect that you didn’t, really.