Organizing to Maintain your Office - 1 The Floor

I am committed to education. I am committed to educating my clients with new behaviours and habits to keep their lives organized. I have heard it said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. If my clients continue to do what they have always done - their lives will once again be full of the clutter that I help them control/purge/manage and they will be no more organized then before we started working together.

This week's posts will address basic, simple habits to help you keep the clutter at bay. Organizing does not have to be complicated. In fact, the less complicated your routines the more likely anyone - you, your spouse/partner, your children - are likely to follow them. Keep it simple and focused - keep the clutter away.

Habit 1 - Clear the floor.
Spend 15 minutes at the end of each day clearing away the debris off your floor. Refile the file folders that you dropped their. Pick up the paper and recycle or file. Return the books to the book shelf. Look under your desk. Is there an old pile of shoes? Throw out the ones you no longer wear and put the others in the closet with your coat. Anything that doesn't actually belong in your office can be returned to its rightly location.

If you are doing this exercise at home, and you have children, they can easily help. Bear in mind, it does not need to be a lengthy process. Give the children 15 minutes to run through the house and pick up/put away their toys, books, homework items, sports equipment. Consider giving a reward when they are done like reading them an extra chapter of their book or a Popsicle.

There may be lots of clutter on the floor when your first start. That's OK. Try this for 28 days without a break and I guarantee you that by day 29 your house will be tidier and you will feel more organized and in control of the clutter.

Declutter the Feeder

Hop on over to my colleague Marcia Francois at Organizing Queen. Tomorrow she will walk you through an online decluttering exercise - like those feeds to which some of us are addicted but really never use. Sound familiar? Lean and clean to be productive and effective.

Home Office - Not to Abound

If you are working in a home office, you may have already identified that it is important for your work life balance to set up a form of boundary or border. Separation of work and home life is essential for good organization, good health and productivity. Here are a couple of ways to accomplish these borders:

• Use screens, room dividers or use a bookcase/filing cabinet or other furniture as a room divider.
• Use an office in a cabinet set up so that you can close your office at the end of your work day.
• Have a separate phone line installed for your business.
• Ensure that family and clients understand when you are available and when you are not. What are your working hours and when are you home for your family?
• Get dressed each day for work. Establish a ritual for "entering" your office. Do you have your coffee/tea/water in hand?
• Ensure that you have a storage closet or other space for supplies so that they don't end up all over your home.

These tips will help you to maximize your focus while at work and minimize the intrusion while at home.

Recession Strategies

"Who has time to organize?" you ask. "My boss has just been let go and a dozen colleagues have been downsized. A neat office is not on my priority list."

While a neat office may not be high on your priority list, A1 performance ought to be. In these difficult economic times, you want to be sure your high performance is facilitated by your organization level and not hampered or impeded by your lack of organization.

And if you think you have hidden your disorganization from your colleagues and boss for these past years - think again. Most managers have a pretty good idea of who is well organized and who is not. For one thing, organization and performance are frequently related - your colleague next door with the clean desk doesn't waste any time in getting your boss the report he/she needs or following up on that very hot sales tip.

If there were ever a time to commit to improving your organization level, now would be it. Start with either your desk or the floor. Get rid of the extra paper, shoes, garbage, recycling and boxes. It will speak volumes to those in charge about your commitment to productivity.

Books - Enough Already

Peter Walsh's most recent book Enough Already is now available on Amazon. I highly recommend this to those of you who are overwhelmed not only by your clutter, but by your life in general. True to his character, Peter handles not just the stuff in our lives but the issues of emotional and mental clutter.

Whether you are tackling little clutter, big clutter at home or at work, I recommend this read to you.

Quiet Hour for Executives

How often do you book a meeting with yourself in order to get time alone to work on a priority item? All too often, we feel guilty for booking time to ourselves rather than making ourselves available to the people in our business world. Consider, however, whether or not those priority items are in fact getting done on a timely basis with the number of distractions coming into your workspace during your regular work day.

Booking a quiet hour whether for a project, a task, or to think can be a very effective organizing tool for managers and executives. It is especially effective for planning time at the end of the day. The best time to plan for tomorrow's agenda is at the end of today. Taking a quiet hour to review your priorities, plan out your day and block in your activities will increase your effectiveness as a leader and as an employee.

It may take a couple of times before the people around you realize that you really do mean to be left alone. Don't answer the phone, email or door. Pretend that no one is in the office. Concentrate for that quiet hour on the task at hand. Pretty soon other people will learn to respect your time and need to work alone. Especially when they see the productivity that results!

More on Labelling E-files

You have no problem handling file names with dates attached but now you are wondering "How do I label files so that my most frequently used items come to the top of my list when my computer only files by number or alphabet?"

Use letters like numbers to help your computer file by frequency of use. If you use a file often, start the file name label with an A (or AA, AAA depending on the number of files you are labelling). Start the file name of those files used least often with a Z (ZZ or ZZZ etc.)

Your computer will obligingly file alphabetically reading those letter first and your files will be listed according to frequency of use.