So, Why Get Organized?

  The average businessperson receives 190 pieces of information each day. The average businessperson wastes 150 hours each year looking for stuff. Add 10 more hours and that is an entire work month. If you got organized you could have an extra month each year! Just think how much more you could get done (or how much vacation you could have) if you got organized. You could take a three-day weekend every other week and still do as much as you are doing now - or MORE. What a concept.

   Most of us have some sort of organizing system or, more likely, multiple systems. Unfortunately, those systems are not all encompassing. There are holes in them, things that don't fit or aren’t accounted for within the system you have designed. The piles on your desk result from holes in your system (as well as the 190 pieces of information each day). What you need is one, all encompassing organizing system. Until you have that, until you have one, simple, intuitive, easy to maintain system, attempting to clean off your desk will only thwart, exhaust and annoy you. And, your desk won't stay clean for long. 

   One of the major benefits of having a single, all encompassing system is that we don’t have to make thousands of little decisions each day such as "What do I do with THIS piece of paper?" "Where can I put this so I can find it again later when I need it?" Making 190 of those decisions each day is emotionally and mentally exhausting. Once you have a system, you KNOW where those pieces of paper go, and it is simply a matter of putting them there.

   You also need to change the way you think about those 190 pieces of new, incoming information each day. The biggest mistake disorganized folks make is believing there is a "later." For us, there is only "now," and "too late." All the things we optimistically put off till later end up just laying there for days, weeks, months, or years. How old are some of the things in your stacks? We need to develop methods for making decisions about things as they come in, not waiting till that magical hour in the mythical "later" miraculously appears. Then and only then can you begin get control of your own personal chaos. 

   What qualifies me to help those of you who are by nature disorganized? Because, I am just like you. I am, by nature, disorganized. I have the same personality profile as most of my clients; i.e. we are creative, we hate details, we are spontaneous and we like to leave things open-ended. We are the creative geniuses of the world. Our energy is focused into the future; the next project, the next idea, the next grand scheme. Unfortunately, paper belongs to the past or at best the present. Our attention is on the future. Therefore, clutter is the natural side effect of being creative! That doesn't mean we don't have to deal with it, it just means we have a good excuse for our mess! 

   Given my personality profile, I have just described someone you would probably NOT hire to help you get organized. Another factor comes into play; I was born legally blind. This problem went uncorrected until I was 30. The effect has been that since birth, if I did not KNOW where something was, I couldn't find it by just looking for it. So, I learned to create simple, disorganized person type systems that are easy to set up and maintain.

   If you only have the energy to implement one thing from this book, make it step one, the Cockpit Office. If you have the inclination to go further, implement step two, Air Traffic Control. Do not do step three only, or step six only, because each step builds on the last. I recommend spending at least one week accomplishing each step, but I don't care how long it takes you to do all the steps, just do them in order, please. What is offered here is a very simple system for business people. It works for everyone, even you, because of its simplicity. You can modify it to fit your individual circumstances, but the basics apply to anybody who has a desk. So, get going and get organized! •

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