How many of you have a big pile (either all together or spread out throughout your home or office) of different sized booklets that give you information about something you purchased? How many of them have you ever referenced?
Next question, if something broke down, could you find it when you needed it? I now know about a great resource that will help you get rid of your obscure ones with no problem!
I am always clipping out (or tearing out) articles from various professional and personal magazines that I will read “some day.” I have been doing this for years (say, way back to those high-school days believe it or not…) I used to get so frustrated because I never found the time to get to the articles and they just kept piling up on my floor or desk.
Then someone helped me!
When I first started working in corporate America, right out of college, my manager told me to make a 5-10 Minute file. He explained that we frequently waste time because we are waiting on someone else. [The company I worked for was infamous for starting meetings late – how aggravating!] To combat that waste of time, he suggested I have a file that contained information that I could read quickly if I was ever looking for something to do for a few minutes.
So, how many of you have experienced this:
You walk into your office and you say to yourself, “Today is the day!” You are excited and you say, “I am going to get this place organized and I’m not leaving until it is done!”
Then… you pick up the first piece of paper, look at it, say, “Hmm, well… I’ll look at that later.” and you put it down. You pick up the second piece of paper, look at it, say, “Oh geese!” and you put it down. The next thing you know, everything from the right side of your office has been moved to the left side of your office and you are tired and call it quits.
Paper can be overwhelming, but it does not have to be! I have worked with a number of people that think that they will never be able to get through their piles. Fortunately, it was not as horrible as they thought! They were able to get through their piles by changing the way that they looked at the piles.
So how many push pins and paper clips do you really need at your desk? Office costs are going up by the minute and we are frequently to blame! Walking by the supply room… we grab a few boxes “just in case” not really knowing if we need the item or not. So, we end up with a bunch of stuff in our office or cube that takes up room and that we do not use! So, consider the following tips for your space.
Have you ever had one of those days or weeks where nothing goes as you originally planned? Well, if you have, you are not alone.
Studies have shown that people waste as much as 4.3 hours per week searching for papers.
In addition, the average North American will be interrupted 73 times a day!
Since it takes 20-30 minutes to transition into deep, critical and creative thought, every interruption causes huge dips in productivity. After a worker is interrupted, it gets worse. Not only do they struggle to get into their creative zone, they lose productivity because they are repeating steps to retrace where they left off. According to a recent study by Basex, the cost is $588 billion a year in the U.S. alone.
Do you ever find yourself feeling like you have mounds of papers that you are climbing over? Maybe your floors and other horizontal services are covered? According to the National Association of Professional Organizers, it costs $120 in labor to track down a misplaced document or $250 in labor to recreate it.
YUCK! Filing systems that work with the way you work are critical to cost management.
The following tips will aid you in setting up systems to meet your needs.