Clutter is up there with death and taxes as one of life's regrettable inevitabilities. You may have heard it said that bringing up children is like shovelling snow when it's still snowing – well, we believe that the same applies to keeping on top of workplace clutter.

If you're running a startup or a small business, organisation is key. But organisation isn't just something that happens in your mind. It can also be affected by the state of your working environment.

Perhaps your office is doubling as a store room – or perhaps another room in the house is filled with stock and orders that need fulfilling.

At a certain stage, this becomes a nuisance. If you've got an important call to take, you don't want to be walking across a wasteland of bubble wrap and half-fulfilled orders like a soldier picking his way across No Man's Land.

There are a number of things you can do to take charge of workplace clutter – and we're going to talk you through a few of them.

But as your business grows, you may ultimately find that it's not worth the stress. You're already a product developer, marketing agent and brand designer. Chances are you don't want to add "cleaner" to that list.

That's where a fulfilment partner can help. If you outsource picking, packing and dispatching to a third-party logistics company, the amount of workplace clutter you have to deal with will decrease dramatically.

But however you choose to tackle the issue, it's worth being aware of the hidden costs – and some ways you can try to tackle them.

Why is workplace clutter a problem?

Being disorganised is an obvious cost of workplace clutter. Most of us have a drawer, cupboard or pile of stuff that we circle warily each day. If you can't find what you need, it's annoying. Simple as.

But this can spiral off into financial costs, too. Let's say you start the day going from room to room like an angry, over-caffeinated ghost, desperately looking for your car keys. You've got out of bed on the wrong foot – and you'll probably walk into a meeting on it too.

The real-world consequences of disorganisation are missed leads, botched deals and inefficient decision-making. Not always, of course – but often enough for it to be worth considering.

This is especially important if you're running a startup or SME. You're in charge of everything. Oprah Winfrey claims not to use an alarm clock – but let's face it, no one is going to kick up a fuss if Oprah Winfrey is late. The rest of us don't have that luxury.

Losing a customer because your workplace is cluttered and your mind is elsewhere just isn't worth it.

You're also in charge of your budget – and if you're losing things on the regular, that means you're buying things again. The costs of lost stationery and tech accessories add up. Again – it's just not worth it, especially if you're being financially prudent in other areas of your work life.

Finally, there's the health and safety angle. A study by the HSE reported that 119,000 employees slipped, tripped or fell at work in the UK every year between 2013 and 2016.

If your bin is overflowing and your receipts are on the floor, it's not just your tax return that could suffer. You might end up injuring yourself – something that can lead to a loss in revenue, especially at the start of your business journey.

What can you do about it?

There are three main categories of things that need decluttering: physical clutter, digital clutter and visual clutter.

Look at your desk now. There's probably some physical clutter – stationery, to-do lists, cables… even bits of old, unused tech. A hairband. A pair of broken headphones. A coin.

One way to deal with this is to schedule spring cleans. It could be a quick clean-up at the end of each day, leaving just what you need for the morning on your desk. Or it could be an intensive weekly or monthly clear-out. What you go for will depend on your temperament, more than anything else.

Digital clutter is more insidious because you don't necessarily notice it piling up. We're talking about duplicate files. Files with no names. Files with names that meant something once but now look like ancient runes. An inbox bursting with spam. A browser bristling with open tabs.

Of course, the search function on your computer is possibly more powerful than your own finding abilities. But it's still worth taking time to declutter your computer so you're not tearing your hair out looking for a file that, you eventually learn, is called "doc-01 RTm (7)".

Finally, there's visual clutter. This is where things look cluttered even if there's not much there. It's like the difference between a shoe rack where all your shoes are paired and facing the same way and one where they're all in a heap.

Choosing storage boxes and containers that match your work environment's aesthetic reduces both physical and visual clutter. It's one of those things that's difficult to do – but once it's done, you won't look back.

How partnering with a 3PL can help

If you're running a startup or SME, you probably know only too well the hidden costs of workplace clutter. After all, your workplace is likely to be some unholy cross between an office, a meeting room, a storage facility and a sorting office.

A great way around this is to work with a 3PL – a third-party logistics company that takes care of picking, packing and dispatching so that you can focus on development, branding and all the other things you need to do.

Say goodbye to clutter and hello to more efficient fulfilment by partnering with a 3PL today.

At Stowsafe, we handle fulfilment, storage and warehousing so you don't have to. Get in touch for a quote today.