Organize Workspace By Cutting Piles Of Paper
By Kevin Smith Staff Writer© Pasadena Star-News, December 16, 2006
With 2007 just around the corner, many of us are already crafting our New Year's resolutions.
Most of these promises involve things like getting more exercise, eating healthier or cleaning out the garage.
But what about your workspace?
That's right, we're talking about those piles of paperwork that rival Mount Everest in height and those boxes you've got shoved under the desk. If you play your cards right, you can clean it all up - and create a far more productive work area in the process.
Office Depot's Five-Day Office Makeover Plan for 2007 is a good place to start. Stephanie Winston, the Florida-based retailer's professional organizer and the author of five books on organization and time management, offers the following tips:
DAY ONE: Slim down the piles.
If a paper is of no interest, toss it. But Winston recommends using a shredder to ensure that confidential documents don't fall into the wrong hands.
If a document is more relevant to a colleague, pass it along to them to minimize your pile. And set aside a certain amount of time each day for organizing. This will boost your productivity.
DAY TWO: Tone up organizational skills.
Put all "to-do" items on a master list and include actions you want to accomplish that day. Take larger projects and divide them into manageable components with portions to be completed in the days leading up to the final project deadline.
Seek out items you can delegate and assign them to colleagues or or vendors immediately.
DAY THREE: Increase file-finding flexibility.
Use general labels instead of very specific titles. You'll find it easier to find what you're looking for if you create a master hanging folder that includes manila folders with more specific names.
Break bulky files into multiple file folders. Organize both paper and online information into file folders. Instead of keeping a few hundred e-mails in an e-mail inbox, organize then into subfolders to make retrieval simple.
DAY FOUR: Strengthen daily organizational skills.
Keep a single calendar where you keep all your appointments. If you use a virtual calendar, be sure it can be brought along with you on the road.
Centralize your supplies. Searching for scissors in a messy drawer won't make you productive. Instead, dedicate a single location to keep all of these supplies, such as a drawer or desktop organizer.
DAY FIVE: Balance organizational needs on the road.
Know where your files are. When planning for a trip, think through the documents you'll need for scheduled meetings.
Carry a laptop or use a business center. Many travelers find that carrying a personal laptop is more productive than trying to use a hotel business center.
Use flash memory key rings to carry important documents. Instead of burning large documents to a CD, which can get scratched in transit, use a UBS flash memory drive to carry important documents and large presentations.
"I've always found that, for many people, the prospect of getting organized is just overwhelming," Winston said. "But there are studies that show people can easily lose two hours of productivity a week if they aren't organized."
Winston said the biggest challenge for most people is thinning down the piles of clutter that have accumulated on their desk.
"All of those papers represent decisions that haven't been made," she said. "You should sit down at your desk and go through it, ruthlessly throwing out things as you go. I also suggest using a shredder. We've all become concerned about ID theft. Your bank statements, credit card statements and even old credit cards ... you need to shred them all."
In some cases, supervisors may be tempted to make employees clean up their messy work areas. Winston cautions against doing that.
"Some people may just be visually oriented," she said. "They may need their materials out where they can see them."
Gary Kaplan, president of the Pasadena-based executive search firm of Gary Kaplan & Associates, said people who are organized in one area tend to be organized across the board.
"It goes beyond the concept of having a neat desk and keeping everything filed appropriately," he said. "We're talking about people having the ability to manage a variety of situations in a given day. You can't do that unless you are very organized."
Kaplan also noted that most performance reviews include a category pertaining to organizational skills.
"It's not so much that your desk looks impeccable, but that you are able to multi-task and get all of those tasks done," he said. "But there are exceptions. I've known people who can grind out an inordinate amount of work. But then you walk out to their car and it hasn't been cleaned in three months."
