The new succeed-at-work trick: get organized!

Whether you work in a cubicle or on a laptop in your living room, your surroundings can have a profound effect on your health and well-being. Experts say even little things--clutter, noise and interruptions--can cause significant job stress.

"A chaotic or disorganized workplace makes it harder to do everyday tasks, so you always feel like you're running behind," says Kathleen Kendall-Tackett, Ph.D., a research associate professor of psychology at the University of New Hampshire in Durham and author of The Well-Ordered Office (New Harbinger Publications, 2005). Regain control over your work life with her tips:

* Find what works for you. A total overhaul of your habits isn't a prerequisite for getting it together. Ask yourself: How do I prefer to do things? What skills and equipment do I already possess? Avoid systems or tools that sound appealing but aren't necessarily right for you (such as a color-coded filing system). Try to create an organizational system that makes intuitive sense to you, like tracking projects on an erasable bulletin board, if you're the kind of person who likes to get the big picture at a glance.

* Declare war on piles. Sort your papers into four groups: immediate action, file, read and pass on. Get through the action pile first, then devote as much time as you can each day to plowing through the others until they're gone.
* Shrink it. Are you hanging on to an entire letter when all you really want is the address? Save desk space by storing the information on your computer or recording it in your Rolodex. Similarly, clip articles you want to keep from magazines and newspapers (recycling the rest) and request digital documents over hard copies so you can save them on your computer.

* Avoid e-mail overload. Set regular times--say, once an hour--to go through your in box rather than responding to every nonurgent message that comes in. Do triage on e-mail by deleting anything that looks like spam, addressing what needs a quick answer and putting off what can wait.

* Limit interruptions. Drown out loud sounds by playing soft music or plugging in a white-noise machine near your desk. Rearranging furniture can also help; for example, placing your desk and chair in a diagonal or sideways position in relation to the door allows you to be accessible without being distracted by passersby.