“I’m embarrassed to show you my office. Do you mind if we just meet in a boardroom today?” asked Stephanie Morgan during our first organizing session.
Stephanie was a highly accomplished and well-respected business woman. And for the most part, the image she projected aligned to this reputation. She was smartly dressed with a tailored suit, stylish glasses and hair neatly tucked behind her ears. She had a firm handshake, spoke clearly and had a calm confidence about her.
When we re-located to Stephanie’s office, an entirely different picture emerged. Her desk was piled high with partially-finished projects, memos, notes and reference materials. Just looking at the piles made me feel stressed for her. Stephanie pointed out all of the systems that she had tried to implement, in her many different quests to get organized and reign in the chaos. She had an accordion file folder on her desk; a cork board covered with reference documents and a very full in / out box on her desk.
As we walked into her office Stephanie scooped up a couple of papers from her chair. “My colleagues put things on my chair because they are afraid that they will get buried otherwise” she said sheepishly. She placed them on top of a precariously tall pile beside her phone. I looked around at chaos in her office and wondered when she would ever get back to those papers.
I asked her “Do you find that you are interrupted a lot with colleagues following up with you?”
“Yes!” she responded right away. “I can’t focus on anything for more than a few minutes because people keep hounding me about stuff they’ve asked me to review. I must admit, with everything I have on the go, the squeaky wheel often gets the grease around me.”
I knew a lot of Stephanie’s pain stemmed from the lack of organization in her office.
“When it comes to the finer details,” I began, “it’s all about systems”.
Stephanie nodded, eager to learn more. I continued: “So many people try to get organized, but unless they establish solid systems, their organizational efforts will not last. And then they end up right back to square one, more frustrated than ever.”
“Stephanie, I believe that you (just like every other professional) have the capability to become and stay organized.” Stephanie nodded tentatively, as if she was unconvinced about her organization potential. “The key things we’re trying to accomplish are to eliminate distractions and make it easy for you to find information when you need it.”
Stephanie and I ended up meeting three times to get her office organized. During these sessions, I went on to provide a lot of detail about the Five Steps to Office Organization:
Establish One Central “To Do” List
Clear Your Desk
Establish a Home for Everything
Create a Logical Filing System
Establish a ‘Staging’ Area
To be honest, Stephanie’s office organization process took some time. But this effort was a good investment. “I used to spend countless hours every week simply shuffling paper and looking for things.” Stephanie admitted. “Now that things are organized, I feel calmer and more in control. I am more on top of my work, and am better able to meet my deadlines” she went on to say with a big smile.
My final words of wisdom were that she needed to focus on maintaining the system going forward. “Don’t worry Ann. I don’t want you to have to come back in six months to do this again!”
“Thanks” I said. “I won’t take it personally.”
Note: Name has been changed to protect confidentiality.
I’ve Got Too Much to Do!
“I’m drowning.” confessed Andrew Martin right after I arrived at his office. “I’ll never have enough time to get this all done.” His arms swooped around his office, drawing attention to the multiple piles of unfinished work. He grabbed his head, scrunched his brow and hunched his shoulders so high they were practically covering his ears.
“You’re right.” I said as Andrew blinked in disbelief.
“But aren’t you supposed to tell me how to get all of this done?” Andrew sounded almost desperate as he implored me to change my answer. “I thought you were the productivity expert!”
To confuse matters even more, I went on to say: “You actually do have enough time. We all do.” Andrew scoffed, with a skeptical look on his face, but I kept going.
“We simply have to get better at prioritizing how we’ll spend our time. What I see happening here is a classic case of trying to do too much at once.” Andrew’s skeptical slowly look started to fade.
“You’re probably right” he said tentatively. “But believe me, everything needs to be done right now!”
“I think if we really took another look at your deadlines, we would find that there was something that needed to be done first.” Andrew tentatively nodded, but seemed open to hearing more. Over the next 15 minutes, we listed out Andrew’s key projects. From there we went on to identify his top three priorities, and ultimately his number one priority.
I pointed out that his frustration stemmed from a lack of time available for these top priorities. Yes, in a perfect world, we want to everything done. But in realistic (and very busy) world, focusing on our top priorities is what we need.
Andrew and I worked together to find time to work on his top priorities. In his case, it was Tuesday and Thursday morning from 9am until noon. We agreed that anything else would be put on the back-burner.
Andrew agreed to do his best to manage any interruptions during these times. If his phone rang, he was going to let it go to voicemail. He was going to close his office door, and ask anyone who dropped by if they could chat after lunch. Finally, he agreed to only check his email once during the morning (for about 15 minutes, half-way through the morning.)
At the end of the day, Andrew committed to focusing on his top priorities during this time – and not allow his attention to drift to other tasks.
Andrew and I were wrapping us a session on a Tuesday morning, just before 9am. My final words of advice were to focus on his number one priority before moving on to number two. Even within this list of the top three, it is important to maintain your focus on your number one goal.
“Great!” said Andrew, who was raring to go. The clock struck 9am as I was walked out. With great pride, I saw that Andrew was intensively focused on his top priority.
Note: Name has been changed to protect confidentiality.
Case Studies
My Office is a Mess!
“I’m embarrassed to show you my office. Do you mind if we just meet in a boardroom today?” asked Stephanie Morgan during our first organizing session.
Stephanie was a highly accomplished and well-respected business woman. And for the most part, the image she projected aligned to this reputation. She was smartly dressed with a tailored suit, stylish glasses and hair neatly tucked behind her ears. She had a firm handshake, spoke clearly and had a calm confidence about her.
When we re-located to Stephanie’s office, an entirely different picture emerged. Her desk was piled high with partially-finished projects, memos, notes and reference materials. Just looking at the piles made me feel stressed for her. Stephanie pointed out all of the systems that she had tried to implement, in her many different quests to get organized and reign in the chaos. She had an accordion file folder on her desk; a cork board covered with reference documents and a very full in / out box on her desk.
As we walked into her office Stephanie scooped up a couple of papers from her chair. “My colleagues put things on my chair because they are afraid that they will get buried otherwise” she said sheepishly. She placed them on top of a precariously tall pile beside her phone. I looked around at chaos in her office and wondered when she would ever get back to those papers.
I asked her “Do you find that you are interrupted a lot with colleagues following up with you?”
“Yes!” she responded right away. “I can’t focus on anything for more than a few minutes because people keep hounding me about stuff they’ve asked me to review. I must admit, with everything I have on the go, the squeaky wheel often gets the grease around me.”
I knew a lot of Stephanie’s pain stemmed from the lack of organization in her office.
“When it comes to the finer details,” I began, “it’s all about systems”.
Stephanie nodded, eager to learn more. I continued: “So many people try to get organized, but unless they establish solid systems, their organizational efforts will not last. And then they end up right back to square one, more frustrated than ever.”
“Stephanie, I believe that you (just like every other professional) have the capability to become and stay organized.” Stephanie nodded tentatively, as if she was unconvinced about her organization potential. “The key things we’re trying to accomplish are to eliminate distractions and make it easy for you to find information when you need it.”
Stephanie and I ended up meeting three times to get her office organized. During these sessions, I went on to provide a lot of detail about the Five Steps to Office Organization:
To be honest, Stephanie’s office organization process took some time. But this effort was a good investment. “I used to spend countless hours every week simply shuffling paper and looking for things.” Stephanie admitted. “Now that things are organized, I feel calmer and more in control. I am more on top of my work, and am better able to meet my deadlines” she went on to say with a big smile.
My final words of wisdom were that she needed to focus on maintaining the system going forward. “Don’t worry Ann. I don’t want you to have to come back in six months to do this again!”
“Thanks” I said. “I won’t take it personally.”
Note: Name has been changed to protect confidentiality.
I’ve Got Too Much to Do!
“I’m drowning.” confessed Andrew Martin right after I arrived at his office. “I’ll never have enough time to get this all done.” His arms swooped around his office, drawing attention to the multiple piles of unfinished work. He grabbed his head, scrunched his brow and hunched his shoulders so high they were practically covering his ears.
“You’re right.” I said as Andrew blinked in disbelief.
“But aren’t you supposed to tell me how to get all of this done?” Andrew sounded almost desperate as he implored me to change my answer. “I thought you were the productivity expert!”
To confuse matters even more, I went on to say: “You actually do have enough time. We all do.” Andrew scoffed, with a skeptical look on his face, but I kept going.
“We simply have to get better at prioritizing how we’ll spend our time. What I see happening here is a classic case of trying to do too much at once.” Andrew’s skeptical slowly look started to fade.
“You’re probably right” he said tentatively. “But believe me, everything needs to be done right now!”
“I think if we really took another look at your deadlines, we would find that there was something that needed to be done first.” Andrew tentatively nodded, but seemed open to hearing more. Over the next 15 minutes, we listed out Andrew’s key projects. From there we went on to identify his top three priorities, and ultimately his number one priority.
I pointed out that his frustration stemmed from a lack of time available for these top priorities. Yes, in a perfect world, we want to everything done. But in realistic (and very busy) world, focusing on our top priorities is what we need.
Andrew and I worked together to find time to work on his top priorities. In his case, it was Tuesday and Thursday morning from 9am until noon. We agreed that anything else would be put on the back-burner.
Andrew agreed to do his best to manage any interruptions during these times. If his phone rang, he was going to let it go to voicemail. He was going to close his office door, and ask anyone who dropped by if they could chat after lunch. Finally, he agreed to only check his email once during the morning (for about 15 minutes, half-way through the morning.)
At the end of the day, Andrew committed to focusing on his top priorities during this time – and not allow his attention to drift to other tasks.
Andrew and I were wrapping us a session on a Tuesday morning, just before 9am. My final words of advice were to focus on his number one priority before moving on to number two. Even within this list of the top three, it is important to maintain your focus on your number one goal.
“Great!” said Andrew, who was raring to go. The clock struck 9am as I was walked out. With great pride, I saw that Andrew was intensively focused on his top priority.
Note: Name has been changed to protect confidentiality.
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