The blog

I’m always honored when someone invites me to their office — and it’s SO exciting to see what a difference a SYSTEM (Saving You Space Time Energy Money!) can make!

Kerry Thomas is a CPES and has recently given a Tedx talk titled “From Clutter to Clarity” which has gotten rave reviews. Join me on a live webinar with Andrea Anderson from PEI as we watch the recording of the talk and then have a live discussion with Kerry Thomas.

Register using this link: https://my.demio.com/ref/BOIkW7G5BuH9pj1Z

It’s a simple fact: Clutter is postponed decisions. Many entrepreneurs and managers have cluttered offices—unless they have an organized assistant. If you don’t believe it, just start looking around you. Begin in your own organization, and then look in places like the manager’s office of your local retail store.

Entrepreneurs and managers think “big picture,” but following through on details can be a struggle. They like to start things, but finishing them can be a challenge. Often the more brilliant a person is, the messier their office. Sorting and filing seems like a lower priority than creating a new product or serving your customer. But is it? It’s easy for observers to wonder, “If someone can’t manage their own office, how can they manage a department or a company?”

According to a 2010 study by Brother International, an office products company, the cost of messy desks and time spent looking for misplaced items in corporate America is about $177 billion annually. That price tag, figuring the time spent daily hunting for misplaced files, staples or documents, added up to 76 hours—or nearly two work weeks—a year. According to the same study, it is also taking a toll on pocketbooks, since nearly one-third of those surveyed failed to get reimbursed for a business or travel expense because they misplaced or lost a receipt.

What is the Problem? Getting and staying organized is not easy—if it were, there wouldn’t be so many highly successful, intelligent, creative people who struggle with it. Unfortunately, organization skills are not taught in school, so unless you were born organized or had a good role model for organization when you were growing up or in a job situation, you’re out of luck.

The combination of computers, and a desire to reduce overhead expenses, means fewer administrative assistants, and as a result, messier offices.

Solving the Problem: There are numerous ways an office can be organized, but statistically, most offices simply have too much stuff. Look at each item in your office and ask the question, “Does this help me accomplish my work or enjoy my life?” If the answer is “No,” but you’re still reluctant to get rid of something, ask “What’s the worst possible thing that would happen if I didn’t have this?” If you can live with your answer, “donate, recycle, or toss it”—and work happily ever after.

If organizing doesn’t come naturally to you, it’s unlikely that with even the best system you will have a continuously neat desk, but cleaning it off at the end of the day, or at the very least, the end of the week, will be a cinch if you simply have a SYSTEM (Saving You Space Time Energy Money).

Designing Your SYSTEM, the Magic 6: Half of any job is using the right tool. Here are six tools you can use to eliminate the clutter in your office, and accomplish your work and enjoy your life:

1. In/Out/File: Place three containers on your desk within reach of your chair.

• One for the items you have not yet looked at.
• One for items you need to take somewhere else—another person’s office, the post office, etc.
• One for items you need to file in a location within your own office that you can’t reach from your chair.

     2. Wastebasket/Recycle/Shred: Make it easy to get rid of what you don’t need. For example, if you have a shredder, but you can’t reach it from your chair, use a desk drawer, or a small box under your desk. Then develop a system for actually getting the paper shredded—whether you do it yourself or hire your child to do it!

    3. Calendar: One of the biggest contributors to a messy desk is papers that serve as reminders to do something. Keeping an open calendar on your desk for making direct entries can help eliminate this issue. While most of us are great at making appointments with other people, we’re not so good at making appointments with ourselves. We need to care for ourselves in order to meet the needs of others.

   4. Contact Management System: Another big source of office clutter is papers (and electronic files!) with contact information—names, addresses, phone numbers, e-mails, etc.

   5. Action Files: These files should be located close to your desk. They contain the papers you need to work on your current projects. They can be sorted in different ways:

• By date (files labeled 1-31 for the current month, and Jan – Dec)
• By type of action (e.g., “Data Entry” “Expense Reimbursement,” “Waiting for Response”
• By name of project, client, or event

Most people have a combination of the three. For example, the August 15 file might remind you to write a new ezine, while the project file labeled “Ezine Ideas” would contain the information you need to actually write it.

   6. Reference Files: These files contain all the papers you may not need on a daily basis, but don’t want to throw away. They can be located in or outside your office. Your “To File” box will serve as a place to hold the papers that need to be filed.

Some projects may have both an Action File and a Reference File. The Action File will contain the papers you are currently using on a project, while the Reference File will contain the completed papers that you want to retain for historical or legal purposes.

So here’s your challenge: Set aside four hours. Clear your desk by putting everything on it in a box.  Set up The Magic 6 to stop future clutter, and provide a system for every new piece of paper in your office.

Maintaining Your Success: Organizing is an art! People often ask, “What should I do?” but the real question is “What will you do?”

No one likes to think about maintenance—but unless you figure out how you can maintain any system, you will fail. You can buy a Lamborghini, but if you don’t complete the necessary maintenance, you will soon have a pile of junk. You can go to a health spa and lose a lot of weight, but maintaining good exercise and good eating habits are essential if you don’t want to gain back everything you lost. One way to think of maintenance is “plan + habits.”

If you know yourself well enough to know you won’t maintain it, and you want your office to reflect the quality of the products and services you provide, hire someone to help a few hours a week. Your office will look better, you will feel better, and your leadership will shine!

Productivity is an art!  I’ll never forget the first time I helped a client set up a stand-up desk!  Another client had an office full of sticky notes with reminders.  When I asked her what kind of calendar she used, she replied, “Oh, I hate calendars. They are so ugly!”  A red leather calendar became one of her most beloved tools.

Sadly, I see many people whose office or home environment is obviously not supporting them, but they’ve abandoned the idea that they can do anything about it. Perhaps they tried changing it themselves, and failed, or even hired an organizing consultant.  It looked great for a few months, but they couldn’t maintain it.  Organizing anything is not about the “stuff,” – it’s about the person or people!  More importantly, it is about stewardship of our resources.  If we have something we are not using that could benefit others, it is our Christian responsibility to make our clutter someone else’s blessing.  If we think something about ourselves or others that is not supported by Biblical truths, it is time to ask for God’s help to eliminate that emotional and spiritual clutter.

Often people ask me, “What should I do?”  My reply:  “That’s the wrong question.  The real question is, ‘What WILL you do?’”  In order to discover the answer to that question, I have developed:

“The 5-Step Productive Environment Process™.”  

1. State your vision.  (What would success look like?)
2. Identify your obstacles. (What has prevented or might prevent you from success?)
3. Commit your resources. (What or who could help you? How much time and money are you willing to invest to solve the problem?)
4. Design and execute your plan.  (This step is 80% of the solution, but you must understand the first three steps first.  Otherwise, you’re just continuing the same clutter cycle.)
5. Sustain your success. (This is the most important step for long-term success.  Be open to change when appropriate.)

Notice the common word in those five steps is “your!”   One of the reasons that I still love my work so much after more than 35 years is that God created every person and every business to be totally unique — so every day is a new opportunity with new challenges.  

Interestingly enough, one of the major contributors to customizing an individual workspace is art — whether it’s a calendar that fits our style, music that puts our brain in the state we need to be most productive, a painting that inspires us, or a “dream board” that reminds us of why we work. Make your home and office a place that inspires your best for the sake of the Kingdom!

So here’s my challenge:  Ask yourself the question: “What is the most important step I need to take in the next year to make my business and my life all that I believe God intended it to be?”  Then apply the 5-Step process to making that vision a reality! Everything you feel or think about that issue is one of the five steps.  If you’re not sure, don’t be afraid to ask us for help!  

Trademarks are property of Barbara Hemphill

My life’s work is helping people organize their homes and offices to create and sustain a “productive environment”—an intentional setting in which everyone can accomplish their work and enjoy their lives. With the upcoming gardening season, I have realized how many similarities there are between the organizing techniques which apply to creating a productive environment in your home, and to growing and sustaining a beautiful garden. Read on to learn seven techniques that apply to both!

1. Successful organizing begins with a vision.

Organizing in and of itself has no value. It’s simply a process to help get you from where you are to where you want to be. The initial question I ask every client is “If we were to meet three years from now, what has to happen for you to feel happy about your progress?”  Their answers vary widely, and include such statements as “I’ll be making $100,000/year,”  “I’ll be taking six weeks of vacation every year,” “I’ll be working at home,” or “I’ll be happily married.” If we don’t have something to aim for, we’ll never get there.

The most beautiful gardens are first planted in someone’s mind!  Haphazard planting will most likely result in haphazard results.

2. Organizing doesn’t have a ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’

The most exciting aspect of my work is the “art of organizing.” I frequently tell our clients, “You paint a picture of what you want to accomplish, and we’ll help you create and sustain an environment to make that happen!” What works beautifully for one client would be a complete disaster for another.

And so it is with gardens. A friend of mine has a garden with incredibly beautiful flowers, but with recycled coffee cans containing new plants, piles of weeds for mulch, and no apparent order to the plantings. It would cause me great angst to look out my kitchen window and see it, but to her it’s full of promise!

3. Today’s mail is tomorrow’s pile™.

One of the services we offer our clients is The Office Miracle™  — one day in your home or office, and we guarantee a system which allows you, or anyone else you designate, to find any information you need in seconds – or you don’t pay for the service! We start by organizing your desktop where you most likely have the newest papers. You can worry about all those old piles later! After you get the new system in place, you can incorporate the old files into the new system. If you don’t, they’ll eventually be old enough that tossing them will be easy.

While it’s certainly important to clean up the trash, weeds, and other undesirables in your garden, if you limit yourself to that activity, you can work very hard and see little results. One of the things my landscape designer taught me was to pick one small area and start planting. The results inspired me to keep going on to bigger and better things!

4. Clutter is Postponed Decisions®.

Closets fill up to overflowing because we haven’t decided if we’re really going to lose that ten pounds, what to do with the candlesticks from Aunt Sally, whom we dearly love, but they really don’t fit the decor, or whether we’re ever really going to use that exercise equipment again…  Often we are afraid to decide because we might make a mistake.

For years, my fear of failing prevented me from enjoying the experience of gardening. Now I’ve learned that every attempt teaches me something, which permits greater success the next time!

5. Put Like Items Together.

 When organizing anything, one of the first steps is getting “the big picture.” That means not getting bogged down deciding about each piece of paper or item of clothing, but grouping items together by category. Then you can decide how much space you’re willing to give up for each category, and deciding is easier.

One of the first steps in creating any rewarding garden is determining what kind of garden you want – vegetable, herb, cutting, perennial, etc.  As great as all those options are, if you try to have all of them in the same space, the result will be disappointing. Creating a specific area in your garden for herbs, another for cut flowers, etc. will most likely produce more desirable results.

6. Half of any job is using the right tool!

Note I said “using” – not “having!” So many times, people struggle with organizing their lives simply because they don’t have the right tools. Often the changes required are simple ones:  For example, instead of an “In Basket” which frequently becomes a depository for postponed decisions, substitute three baskets: In, Out, and File.

It took a blister to convince me to buy a new pair of loppers to finish trimming the butterfly bushes. With the new tool, pruning was easy and painless.

7. “Organizing is a process not a destination.”

Maintaining any system requires continually asking three questions:  “Does it work?’’ “Do I like it?” “Does it work for the others I care about?” Be willing to take risks, don’t worry about mistakes, and just keep learning!

A garden, like organizing, is a continual process of reassessing what you like, what you don’t, rearranging existing plants, and trying new varieties. The results can be rewarding beyond your wildest dreams to you, and to others.

It’s not something we like to think about, but you don’t have to look far to realize it only takes minutes for your life to go from peaceful to panic.

Lee was working on a scaffold in New York City when it suddenly collapsed. He was rushed to the hospital in a coma. His wife Beth had focused on taking care of their five children, and hadn’t taken the time to pay attention to how Lee managed the bill paying on their computer. When he woke up after three days, her first question was “Lee, what’s the password to the computer?”

John, who lived alone, was riding a bicycle when a motorist suddenly opened his door in front of John, and he was left in a coma on the street.  Finding the information needed to care for him became an overwhelming challenge.

One of the most important gifts you can give your family, or if you live alone, yourself, is to address these seven questions regarding the information that someone will need if you pass away or are incapacitated:

1) What Information Do We Need To Keep? 

Start now to identify the information others will need to take over the “business of life.”  It’s easy to find books, software and other resources to collect the information, but don’t let perfectionism prevent your progress. Pick one, and begin today.  You can always change to another system later.  Just putting notes in a file folder (easily accessible by the person you want to have it!) is a place to start.

2) In What Form — Paper or Electronic?

This question should be answered by the person who is collecting the information – or procrastination will prevail.  If the person who is collecting the information prefers paper, but the person who will need the information prefers electronic, they can make the change either now or when the time comes they are actually using it.

3) Who Is Responsible for Filing It?

Of course, the answer is obvious if you live alone!  In a family, the answer is the person who most often deals with the information that needs to be shared, but ideally it should be a shared task, since one person is quite likely to think of things the other person does not.

4) For how long?

It will be easier for someone else to take over your records management if you don’t give them more than they need.  Create a habit of purging your information annually while you are updating any information that has changed.

5) Who Needs Access To It?

There should be at least one person who has access to everything in the case of accident or illness. (You may want to identify a second person in case the first one is not available in a timely manner.)  Other people may need/want access to certain types of information.  For example, you might want all your children to have access to the information you are collecting, or your primary doctor should have access to all your medical records

6) How Can We Find It?

The key to finding information you are keeping in paper format is a file index – a list of the names of the files/documents.  The advantage of electronic filing is the search capability of the computer, but even in that case, make sure to put enough words in the file names to make it easy for others to find.  Use consistency in recording dates – e.g., xxxx-xx-xx (year-month-day).

7) How Is It Backed Up?

If you are using paper, at least store the information in a fire proof safe, but a safer solution would be to have a second copy in a separate location.  Obviously this makes updating a bigger challenge.  History demonstrates that the only thing between you and a computer crash is time, so if you are storing your information electronically, and the people who need it are in various locations, the most effective solution is storing the information in the “cloud.”

Clutter is postponed decisions. Through the years, I’ve seen families with filing cabinets, boxes, and drawers filled with important information.  When the unexpected happens, panic ensues, and the pain of the situation is increased multi-fold.

Start today to collect the information someone else might need to take care of your affairs.  It will be a treasured gift.