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PRESS COVERAGE |
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On to Davenport’s method: Step 1: Create a “cockpit” at your desk. Set up the tools in your physical space based on frequency of use. The things you use daily should be within hand’s reach. The things you use weekly should be within arm’s reach. “For neither situation does your butt leave the chair,” she says. “When it does, you’ll be gone an average of 20 minutes. And chances are you won’t return with what you went to get.” Items you use once a month can be in the office space. “It’s now legal to get up,” Davenport says. “But if you use something less than once a month, consider putting it someplace else. You want to create for yourself your own uninterruptible space.” Step 2: Create an “air traffic control system.” Davenport says every worker needs four key tools: an in box, a to-read file, a to-file file and a hot file. The in box should be emptied and reviewed at least once every 24 hours. ‘That doesn’t mean you do everything. But you have to be reviewing to know which things you’re going to do,” Davenport says. The to-read file holds noncritical material you’d like to read at some point. “We all get more reading material that we can manage,” she says. “When the file is full, fan it out, pull out the three to five most important things, put those back and throw the rest away. You’re not reading it anyway. It’s just a huge pile of guilt.” The to-file file is for things that are going out of the cockpit. And the hot file holds “the files you touch every day or every other day: current clients, current projects or frequently repeated tasks,” Davenport says. "These four files will solve a lot of the paper mess on people’s desks,” she says. Another recommendation is stacking trays up to eight high for various piles of papers, such as expense slips, things to take home, things to be copied, future projects and the key files. “Think vertical,” Davenport says. She recommends a time planner like a Day-Timer to keep track of appointments and to-dos. ‘The method Benjamin Franklin invented 200 years ago is still the best,” she says. “He took a blank diary open to two pages with a place to write things to do and places to go, and a blank page for notes specific to things that will happen or have happened that day.” Reminders scattered over the desk should go into the time planner, Davenport says. "The average businessperson has eight systems of keeping track of what they’re doing,” she says. “Some of it’s on the computer, some on the desk, Post-its, phone messages, on the refrigerator, the sun visor. Get it into one place.” Step 3: Create a pending file to hold the odd bits, the memos, surveys, dry cleaner slips and other things you plan to deal with at a later date and that don’t have another home. "The trick to the pending file is you never put anything in it that you don’t first write in the planner as a to-do,” she says. Davenport says she often thinks about Franklin, who wrote that of the 13 virtues he believed were most important in life, being organized (third on the list) was the one he almost couldn’t accomplish. “For some of us, this is not an easy thing,” she says. ‘The worst part is that most of us can remember a time when leaving something out to remind us worked. But the volume was a 10th of what it is now. We developed patterns and habits and work ethics from the time when it was different, and now we’re insane because we keep doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result.” She says that on the office desk, “every square inch is priceless.” "You’ve got to treasure it; you’ve got to respect it. Every square inch is costing you in productivity. Every desk is messy when you’re working, but it should be clear at the end of the day. The question is, when the lights are out and you go home at night, what does it look like?” |
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Liz Davenport has five cats, two dogs, 10 finches, four hens and a rooster. The walls in her North Valley home and office range from shades of cantaloupe to chartreuse, and a china cabinet stuffed to the gills sits next to her desk. This does not seem like the home of an organizational consultant — someone dedicated to getting rid of clutter and creating order from chaos. It seems much too warm and cozy and alive. But Liz Davenport is living proof that unruly creative types can get organized, and she wants to spread the gospel. "The thing is: Organized people cannot tell disorganized people how to be organized," she says. "They're two different species." And Davenport has figured out the system. "I'm the disorganized organizer," says the 5-foot-9-inch brunette. "I'm just like my clients." Now ... how could that be? Most disorganized types can't wade through the piles of clutter in their junk rooms — er, home offices — much less tell anyone else how to get organized. But Davenport, 48, was born legally blind. "My vision is 23/60," she says. "What most people can see at a quarter of a mile, I can't see until I'm 20 feet away from it." As a child, she couldn't tell her Lincoln Logs from her Tinker Toys when they were scattered on the floor of her room. "So I always put my toys away," she says. "I had to have a home for everything or else I couldn't find it again. I can't 'look' for stuff. 'Looking' is a learned skill." A correct diagnosis of her condition wasn't made until she was 30, when contacts helped correct her vision. Still, to read something, she has to hold the text 8 inches from her nose. But while her vision may be a bit fuzzy, her mission is not. Today, those organizational skills she first learned in her bedroom have grown and developed into expertise that she uses to whip into shape clients that range from Intel and Coldwell Banker to your next-door neighbor in his home office "I just do offices," she says. "If you try to organize homes, you get into marital issues, family issues and then family-of-origin issues — they refuse to pick up after themselves because their mother made them do it." |
"I have a theory about the decades of a person's life," Davenport says. "From zero to 10, it's about finding out what the rules are; from 10 to 20, it's about breaking them; 20 to 30 is sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll; 30 to 40 is 'I'm different from everybody else'; 40 to 50 is doing something about that difference; and 50 to 60 — I haven't gotten there yet." In her 30s, Davenport was busy defining herself. She began working at Intel in those years and while there, started and finished a bachelor's degree in business at the University of Phoenix campus here and a master's degree in adult education at the University of New Mexico. She started as a temp at Intel and when she stopped working there some 10 years later was in project management and scheduling. In plain English, Davenport explains that job description. Imagine that a new factory needs be built, she says. That means new equipment has to be attached to a computer, which has to be attached to a main computer. Equipment is arriving at different times and as it's arriving, the company wiring needs to be available at that spot, and that area has to be attached to the main computer. "You're talking acres of factory space," says Davenport. "So it's working with all the manufacturing people and construction people and making sure everything is working." And that's where she discovered her strong suit. "I found I was really good at getting things done in the shortest number of steps," she says. "Back in the '50s, they used to be called efficiency experts. I just kept doing it on a larger level." And what she found was this: "The further you got away from an individual, the less trying to organize things mattered." In other words, each individual's level of organization was the key. "Somebody, some person, was always the monkey wrench. "The biggest bang for your buck, as far as a company is concerned, is to organize the individual."
Changing direction |
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Do not squander time,
Eight a.m. Monday morning. You arrive early at the office so you can get that letter out to the big account in Denver. That’s the one you meant to do on Friday but the telephone rang off the hook and then you had that big presentation to send to the client in Monterey that couldn’t wait any longer. You grab a cup of coffee and sit down at your desk. The folder with all the information in it was right next to your in- box when you finally got out of the office at seven o’clock Friday night. You reach for it, but it isn’t there. It must be under all those papers you ran off from the web for the Monterey event. No. It isn’t there. Well, maybe it slipped behind the basket and is under that other pile; the one with the envelopes; and the solicitations from the non-profits. No. It isn’t there, either. |
All right. If there is no later, you need to start figuring out a good system right NOW. Where do you begin? Take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves |
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 Professional organizer cleans up with her business by Wende Schwingendorf Journal Staff Writer |
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Elizabeth Davenport is the master of disaster. As owner of Order from Chaos, she uses organizing techniques and a little bit of psychology to clean the clutter that plagues desks, office spaces and minds. Ever since she was a child Davenport said she was an organizer. Her mother, a former secretary to Gen. Douglas MacArthur during World War II, attired her in frilly white dresses that stayed spotless. Her father, who used to run Post Exchange stores on military bases, was also an organized person. "We never knew disorder in my family, my toys were always put neatly on the shelves," she said. "I learned early on that if everything has a place, it's easier to get those things there." Davenport is also legally blind another reason why clutter can't rule her life. "I have 20/360 vision," she said. "If something isn't where it belongs, I can't see it. "But everyone knows how to do a certain task well and mine is that I know how to organize." And that motto has made a lifelong career for her. She's run her own organizing businesses since 1989, and also worked for Intel Corp. as a project scheduler and a consultant for the computer chip giant. Under the name Order from Chaos, she has organized small businesses like Garfield Laundry and Attwell Glass, and also worked with larger organizations such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Colorado Springs, Colo., City Council. Recently, Davenport brought her expertise to Judie Framan, a consultant with Framan & Smith Communications. In Framan's Corrales home/office space, Davenport is introduced to a closet full of old files in boxes and stacked on desks. Framan's working desk, adorned with a stuffed replica of "Babe" the movie pig is buried under piles of papers. Cubbyholes are stuffed with office supplies and even more paperwork. "I'm trying to bring this business out of bankruptcy," Framan said. "The pig is a reminder to me that if Babe could do it, I can do it." After a series of consultations with Davenport over a week, Framan said the experience of working with Davenport was "very freeing to me." "I think it's because of her approach " Framan said. "You understand everything you're doing because it's taught in a hands-on sort of way.
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"Plus, I'm saving time," she said. "There's not a lot of fumbling for phone numbers or files. Because of that, I'm able to achieve another goal --being able to take a walk by the river instead of being frantic at 5 o'clock." Davenport straightened out Framan's life by first purging years-old files. Cross-referencing remaining files made information easy to find. Additionally, she taught Framan how to effectively use a daily calendar and a pending file --a place for things that don't need immediate attention. Davenport said she takes advantage of her business degree and an additional advanced degree in adult education. "I'm familiar with the issues that businesspeople face," she said. Every client is told to think of their workspace like the cockpit of a plane. "Things that are used at least weekly should be kept within arms' reach," she said. "Otherwise, it needs to go to a less critical space." She also tells her clients never to share a desk. Ever. "I don't care if you're husband or wife, or even if you have a Siamese twin," she said. "No two people work the same. If you have to share a desk, take some masking tape to cut the desk in half and each person gets to do things the way they need to." Davenport prefers to work with small businesses up to 10 people who "have a lot of things to keep track of, that don't have good systems to start out with and then get overwhelmed." Elizabeth Davenport's five rules to Organization 1- Write everything down; trust nothing to memory. Keep one calendar. Keep paper on the front of the fridge to write down grocery items as they are needed. If someone asks you to do something, write it down, right then. 2- Have a method to remind yourself when things need to be done. Your calendar and a pending file are just the ticket. Make a note on the calendar to remind you of the thing to do and keep the corresponding paperwork in the pending file. 3- If items have an assigned home, they will gravitate toward it. If they have no assigned home, they will wander into aimless piles on your desk. Decide how you might use an Item in the future, create a place for it, and put it there. Extra tip: Group things whenever possible. 4- Incoming information is the enemy. Don't ignore it or put it off. Have a station for dealing with all forms of incoming data mail, e-mail, faxes, phone messages. Have your calendar handy, your to-do list and a huge trash can. Write appropriate notes in your calendar and toss the supporting documentation, unless it will be needed. 5- Ask yourself, "If the house was on fire, would I grab this?" If not, why save it? Don't keep anything you can find somewhere else. Clear away as much as possible, then clear away more. Form the habit of throwing things out the emotional cost of being surrounded by useless paper is higher than you realize. |
The
world is getting more chaotic every day...
The
most valuable real estate in town isn’t in High Desert or along Rio
Grande. It’s on your desk.
