Where is Everything - Policies?

Are all your company policies in one room?
Are they all on one server?
Are they in one file cabinet/binder or e-folder?
Are they in one file?
Are they dated?
Are they current?
Do they share a similar format?

Do the employees know they exist?
Are thy accessible to all employees for reference?
Would anyone find them in a reasonable period of time?
Do they use them?
Could your employees direct a new employee to them for reference?

Does your company have an annual review date established for each policy?
Did you review them on/near that date?

Conscientious Business Gifting

For many of you, the title of this entry has more to do with ethics than organizing. While business gifting frequently has an ethical component to it if you are gifting to clients or contractors, the issue I am drawing you attention to is prevention of clutter. Giving gifts that add to clutter in the life of another is just not a gift at all, (unless of course they hire me to declutter their world and then I thank you for the gift!)

In today’s era of “living the moment” and “finding a simpler life” and keeping clutter at bay, I recommend redefining the word consumable. The Encarta Dictionary defines consumable goods as “goods that have to be bought regularly because they wear out or are used up, such as food and clothing”. For the purposes of gift-giving, I have defined the word as follows: A consumable gift is one which by its inherent nature has a best before date or natural expiry date, wears out or is used up and permits the recipient an opportunity to enjoy for a limited time and then dispose of, without guilt”.

If this is a definition that appeals to you for individuals on your gift list, here are some suggestions to get your shopping started.

• Baskets of food, home made preserves, including perhaps candles and some decorative paper napkins related to a a personal interest or characteristic of the recipient e.g. gardener!
• A tribute donation to a charity which is already supported by the recipient or otherwise meaningful to them e.g. The Toronto Humane Society, The Cancer Society.
• A sponsorship donation to a charity which has designed annual sponsorship or gift campaigns e.g. The Toronto Zoo has set up an animal adoption program. In the adoption package you receive a picture and information about your animal. World Vision has a gift catalogue from which you can pick an item that can be supported by your donation e.g. 2 rabbits to a family ($35), a harvest pack for 4 families ($35), a backpack with school supplies for a child ($25), help a family start a business ($100) or fill up a whole stable ($1200).
• Gift certificates especially for a clothing store or movie passes. These gifts are great for the younger recipients on your list.
• Candles, decorative paper napkins, coffee.
• Performance tickets – the show is enjoyed and – poof! – no clutter.
• A gift certificate for maid/cleaning service for a day.
• A music lesson for someone who always wanted to play the ______ (you fill in the instrument).

You get the idea. Now let your imagination have some fun and enjoy the shopping experience knowing that you are helping to keep clutter at bay in someone else’s life. As always, reduce your stress by shopping on line.

Anticipation - The Greatest Time Management Tool

So you think everyone has a better grip on their time than you, right?
You wonder why you can never show up on time for meetings, why you are always running late for everything and whether you will be late for your own funeral. Organizing time is not “rocket science” ( or brain surgery, pick the metaphor you like best) but most of us struggle with it. Even professional organizers show up late for meetings with the wrong or no files.

When it comes to time management, there is nothing more valuable than the ability to anticipate an event or events. Isn’t that what our organizers, calendars, day timers, and PDA’s are all about. The multi million dollar industry of calendars is based on the notion that we like to anticipate what is coming in our lives. With anticipation comes the ability to schedule both our time and our resources – like the car for example. When you look to next Tuesday and see that you have four reports due on the same day, having a whole week to get them done is very, very helpful.

Here’s a primer on organizing your time that will help you to anticipate what’s coming up.

1. Find a calendar that works for you: electronic, PDA, puppy dogs, whatever. The size, style and platform are really only relevant in terms of what works and what looks good.

2. Enter in all the fixed dates over which you have no control: meetings with the CEO, annual meetings, sales travel, interviews with childrens’ teachers, your piece of the car pool. Put them in for the whole term or year until the known completion date.

3. Enter in all the regularly scheduled flexible time such as gym time, squash night, book club, time with spouse. If it is scheduled, the intention moves from a 1 (would like to do) to an 8 (really intend to do) and has half a chance to get to 10 (will absolutely make sure this happens) at which point after 28 days it becomes a habit.

4. Enter into the calendar the activities that lead to what you would like to accomplish by year’s, month’s, week’s, day’s end e.g. I will read one chapter of an organizing book three times a week until I can get to meetings on time.

Have fun anticipating your wonderful life!

Where is Everything - To Do Lists?

Are all your To Do lists in one room?
If they are in one room, are they all in one location in that room?
In that location, are they on one piece of paper, one file or in one file folder?
Are the similar or related items identified as relating to each other?
Are similar actions listed together?
Are they sorted by date identified, date due, level of importance, level of urgency, relevance to your objectives?
Do you know when the items have been accomplished?

Remove the A1's

Priorizing your To Do List used to be a case of ranking A, B or C and then ranking within A, B or C to 1, 2 or 3. It was the A1’s that were to get our attention; and I suspect that you are still struggling to get the A1’s done.

You’ve rewritten your list so that every task starts with an action verb such as call, write, create or decide. Write into your calendar a time slot for all your call items that will take more than 10 minutes. Anything less than 10 minutes, do it now. Complete the same process for your other action verbs items and watch the list disappear.

To Do Lists that Get It Done

So you’ve written the To Do lists faithfully and still can’t get your A1 priorities done. In fact, you have To Do lists all over the place and have even taken to highlighting the A1 priorities, right?

In order for a To Do List to be a Got it Done List, use action verbs to start your items. Using a verb is often not enough direction to yourself and leaves you with a vague sense that something has to be done but not sure what. For example;

Follow up with John Doe regarding Great Project outline.

becomes

Call John Doe – confirm deadline for Great Project outline.

Verbs such as call, write, file, decide or forward are useful action verbs for most business environments. Make up your own handful of action verbs and see your To List become your I’m Done List!

Top 5 Series - Actions that make a Difference

I have been humbled. Left without internet access, I missed posting Friday as I had promised and apologize for the lack of continuity. Thanks to a(nother) broken water main in our community, we were left without water for 5 hours over the supper hour this evening. Those broken mains, and our short drought, serve to remind us just how indulgent we can be with water, how much we take it for granted and how hard it is to find drinking water in some parts of our world. To follow up from last week, here are five things to do to get your business more organized on your strategic objectives.

1. Make your Mission and Goals as clear as water itself. Once they are established, make sure every employee knows what they are and how their role contributes to accomplishing those goals. Consider taking a page from Brian Scudamore’s journal at 1 800 Got Junk where the company goals are written right on a wall in letters large enough to read across the room. Everyone in the office can see where the company focus is, and whether or not the goals have been reached. Everyday a team meeting is held to report on the indices related to those goals so that everyone is clear where they fit in and how their work contributes to the results.

2. Commit to focus and organization at an executive level. Whether it’s clearing your own clutter, improving your time management, setting up a central filing system or establishing a corporate declutter session, commit to the process and demonstrate the behaviour. In ten out of ten businesses I’m ask to assist to streamline and declutter, the only businesses that are successful are those with a senior management team that commits to the process.

3. Establish storage and retention policies and ensure that staff uses them. This is particularly important for staff who have been in a position for a lengthy time (years) and those that have recently taken over a role from another employee. Are their files up to date both electronic and paper? Have they reviewed their predecessor’s files and do they know what’s there? Do they regularly purge paper and e-files? Is their office littered with material unrelated to their role or the company’s business?

4. Review carefully any space requirement and insist on a clear out session before the request is approved and, more importantly, acted upon. If you have recently approved a space or storage request, do you know for sure that you are approving additional cost, as more space and storage will incur cost, for material that is consistent with your company’s goals and objectives? Or, have your employees given up on trying to pear down and instead spend their time managing the paper and unnecessary tasks rather than on behaviour to advance your strategic directions.

5. Manage the disorganized employee. If organization is an expectation of employees in order that they contribute to the strategic directions of the company than ensure they get that message. Set goals, set limits and follow up. A disorganized employee drains dollars from your business. Tardiness, unfinished work, redo’s, reprints all cost money. When that disorganization goes unchecked, you are sending a loud message out to the rest of your employees that clarity, focus and resource accountability are values that are not supported by you or your company. If you don’t care, why should they?

Top 5 Series - Reasons that Companies are Disorganized

Why does the disorganization occur? Remember, good leadership always includes accountability.

1. Disorganization by Senior Executives
These individuals are easy to spot. They frequently ask for documents a second time. “Send me another copy, it’s probably in my email backlog.” The last thing they need is another copy of anything. Their offices are often an array of piles and may not leave you a spot to sit down. They are often late for meetings. If these individuals chair a meeting, you may be late for your next one as they likely won’t finish on time. Meanwhile direction is unclear and accomplishment is minimal. On the other hand, action - without accomplishment - is plentiful, often at the expense of others because other people work harder to keep these folks organized.

2. Insufficient Action Regarding Strategic Objectives
Once the mission, vision, strategic goals and target are set, who does the follow up? Where is the accountability and how often is progress tracked. You may have used balance scorecards, dashboards, quality management strategies or a host of other tools and still found your company falling short of its goals. Look and see what structure, systems and processes were put into place to support the accomplishment of those goals. Are they visible? Does everyone know what they are and how the company will attain them?

3. Lack of Documentation Retention Policies
I am constantly surprised the number of times I enter an individual’s office and find they have paper they have never looked at, boxes they have never opened and don’t know what to do with material that they don’t want or need any longer. Do your employees know how often your expect them to purge their files, paper or digital, and what to do with the result?

4. Failure to Understand Space Requirements of Employees/Programs
Too often when programs or employees ask for more space, they are merely moving clutter they don’t need in the first place. Unfortunately, their bosses don’t understand enough about their position, role or program to understand that before anything is moved, an new filing cabinet is purchased or a new lease is signed, a good clear out is required.

5. Unwillingness/Inability to Manage/Address Individual Disorganization
Unfortunately for employee and manager alike, too many managers are ill prepared to assess and address disorganization in an employee. Their tardiness on projects, lateness for meetings, failure to respond to email and excessive piles of paper and overtime hours are disappointing at best and very expensive for a company to support. Tackling it requires diligent performance management and all too often, managers just don’t have the skill.

Tomorrow the Top 5 continues with Actions to Make a Difference.

Top 5 Series - Indicators of Disorganization

You think you run a great company. Maybe you do. You’ve studied the books, taken the courses, run the retreats. At the same time, you admit to yourself when no one else is looking that something isn’t quite right. You, and your company, may be suffering from a basic lack of organization. Here are the top five indicators I find when companies are swimming in corporate clutter and stuck in the land of corporate disorganization.

1. Targets are not being met.
This is the indicator that keeps you awake at night. As we scream through the third quarter you are already sweating. You didn’t meet first quarter or second and here you are behind the eight ball for third.

2. Employees don’t understand the mission and/or strategic goals.
You have the mission memorized. You’ve agonized over your strategic goals. Every word is perfect. You’ve done the retreat and handed out copies. Why is it then, that no one remembers? Why don’t your employees remember what the company is trying to accomplish this year?

3. Employees are unhappy.
You have a sense that there are just too many good bye lunch parties. Meanwhile you’re soaking up your training and development budget with new hire orientation rather than development of your existing and loyal employees. At the same time, you’ve hearing complaint after complaint from employees about this, that and the other thing. They never bring it up to the team meetings, (do you have them?) they just grumble.

4. Offices, work spaces are cluttered.
Starting with yours; Do you, or your staff, keep asking for another copy of ____________ because they can’t find it? Do you, or your employees spend too much time looking for things and not enough time acting on goals? Sure, you know exactly where that proposal is, right? If I said you had 10 seconds to find it, could you? What about 5? What is under, behind or beside your desk? Your employees desks? Check it out.

5. Someone, or ones, is (are) working longer hours than they should. i.e. outside of the normal ebb and flow of business and seasonal cycles, you have one employee, maybe its you, that is always there later than everyone else, comes in on weekends, and probably still is not meeting their performance objectives.

So now you are going to spend the day acutely aware of these indicators in your company. That’s ok. Remember, the first step to change is recognizing when there is a problem. I’ll continue the Top 5 Series this week. Tomorrow – Top 5 Reasons why Companies are Disorganized.

Focus

Focus – with a camera? A noun or a verb? And what makes me think it has anything to do with business anyway? Ever try creating something without it?

Probably the single biggest reason employees fail to reach their goals and business fail to succeed is lack of focus. Do you have a mission? Do you know where you are going? Do you know what it will look like when you get there? Do you have a road map? Have you shared the map with anyone else? Have you shared it with everyone else?

If you or your employees are not focused on the goals of the company, they are messing around with what I call corporate clutter; All the stuff that gets in the way of your business, project, division, board of directors or _____________ succeeding (you fill in the blank). It is no different than in your home where clutter takes time, energy and money to manage, and manage around. If your day is cluttered with unnessary and unfocused activity, you are messing with clutter and wasting energy that would otherwise help your business succeed.

Focus: think about it.

Leadership is something we do, not something we study.

This blog is the result of turning dreaming into action. Many years ago, I had the privilege of reporting to a man who, when he learned of my ambition to someday pursue a PhD in the study of leadership, motivation and education, responded that leadership is something we do, not something we study. My path since that moment has taken an interesting turn. The journey has included formation of my company, Wellrich Organizers, almost three years ago and a sojourn through more academia as I pursue certification in chronic disorganization with the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization. A focusing of the education, experience and knowledge gained thus far, professional organizing has proven to be the melding of three knowledge arenas which have long held my interest, study and passion namely education, management and psychology. So here goes....I invite you to join me.