Last spring I watched as crews of college students patrolled the beaches on Bolivar Peninsula in Galveston, doing the spring clean-up to rid the shore of accumulated debris.
Two months later I returned to the beach and found very little evidence of their earlier efforts. Cans, bottles, and paper were scattered across the sands. More clean-up days needed to be scheduled.
It struck me that this is the way many people approach their offices in their attempts to gain control of the overwhelming demands on their time. They decide to get organized and designate a time to get it all in order. Old papers are dumped, materials added to existing files, and often some new baskets and containers are purchased to handle all of the materials. Everything looks great. Then, in a couple of weeks, when they enter their offices it is as if that day had never occurred.
What happened in both of these scenarios?
1) There is no new procedure established that would eliminate future clutter.
2) Cleaning up and getting organized are not the same.
Getting organized means:
-Creating systems and realigning spaces
-Making an immediate decision about everything coming in
-Placing the paper or item in the appropriate location for further action
Benefits of getting organized include:
-prioritized use of time
-no reshuffling of clutter
-increased ability to focus
Keeping the beach cleared and keeping our desks cleared are both about developing habits to tie in with the system.
On the beach, if there were sufficient trash receptacles and visitors would develop a habit of putting papers and debris immediately into the trash can, someone else wouldn’t have to come by and process this for them by picking it up and disposing of the litter, allowing those volunteer hours to be used for other purposes.
Most people are familiar with the adage, “Handle a piece of paper only one time.” However that doesn’t work. What that means is that you make an immediate decision about what to do and when to do it, then place it in the proper place right away. A decision is made the first time you touch the paper. The fact that there is a process and a place is the difference between cleaning, or clearing, and organizing.
Why keep repeating the cleaning-up scenario when we can set aside one day to really get organized, establishing systems that will continue to work for us? By using our time more productively, we might even manage a few extra beach trips this year instead of being stuck in our offices.
