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| Work to Rule |
| Time is money, the adage goes, and lots of it gets lost in disorganization and disruption. Get a grip on your office space, organize your work flow and eliminate employee gossip. Here's how. |
| by Charmaine Noronha ~ Homemakers' Magazine |
| It's genetic - Pamela Ruebusch is sure she inherited her father's disorganization gene. Within months of starting TSI, an employment search firm, with partner Stacy Agnos, her desk was piled high with paper, and she was running fom meeting to meeting while managing the numerous responsibilities that go with a start-up. "I didn't know what to get off my desk and give to [an] administrative person to handle...If something were to happen to me, nobody else would be able to find anything," she says. She's not alone. Disorganization is so prevalent in the workplace that the Professional Organizers in Canada (POC), a national self-monitoring association with 28 members, estimates a typical executive wastes 150 hours a year - almost one month - searching for misplaced information. For someone earning $50,000 a year, that translates to a loss of $3,842 a year. "Physical cultter and disorganization in the workplace leads to mental clutter," says professional organizer, Debra Milne, founder of ProfessionalOrganizers.com. "It can bring down your efficiency levels to such an extent that you're spending half of your day correcting the mistakes caused by your lack of proper systems and planning." Ontario-based Milne, and fellow professional organizer Margaret Miller, are the clutter-busters for employees battling a lack of time and administrative structures that don't work - almost like Dan Akroyd in Ghostbusters, except the Proton Gun has been replaced with time planners and filing systems. Ruebusch used to spend about 50 per cent of her time re-acting to situations instead of planning. After consulting Milne and Miller, Ruebusch says she now spends only "five per cent of my time looking at what's happening in that day, and the rest of the time fulfilling what needs to be done." |
| Besides poor planning and physical clutter, "people clutter" - the drop-in visitors and office gossip mongers - can rob employees of precious work time. "[Gossip's] like a bucket of ice water on everybody's happy days because the negativity that can spread so quickly from it is very powerful," says Cheryl Smith of the EmployAbility Group, a Vancouver-based organization that helps clients adjust to change in the workplace. "It can bring down morale and eat into your ability to work efficiently to the extent that if it's not stopped, a business's day-to-day operations could be jeopardized. Just ask Jennifer Reynolds (Please note that her name has been changed.) Office gossip had become so rampant in the small public relations company where she worked that it was difficult to avoid. "It's easy to tell one person that you're busy if they come around to see you with the latest 'scoop' on so-and-so," says Reynolds. "But if every other person's in on it, there's no getting away from it. Your concentration and peace of mind is shot because their interruptions take your attention away from the task at hand." Reynolds was forced to go to management, who agreed to bring in a mediator so employees would learn to respect each other's time, personal situations and confidentiality. "She spoke to the culprits of the gossiping and we practised role reversal - where the gossipers became the subjects of gossips," says Reynolds. "Once the gossipers got a chance to see what it felt like to be on the receiving end, they stopped their bad habit." Here's how to tackle the top seven disorganizational demons: 1. THE PAPER CHASE "Eighty per cent of documents retained are never reviewed beyond the initial read," says Milne. "At least 40 per cent of all the paper the average person receives should be tossed." Barbara Hemphill, co-creator of the software The Paper Tiger, offers the FAT principle for paper burden - File it, Act on it, or Toss it. Once you've thrown away as much as possible, file everything else into what both organizational coaches call an effective retrieval system, such as an electronic-based filer called The Paper Tiger (see "Taming Your Workplace" below), or a hard-paper filing system. Then sort your files into the following groups according to how often you need them: Reference Files: store in a convenient location, such as a lateral file folder close to your desk. Archive Files: store in a filing cabinet or an off-site location. Action Files: store in a desk drawer, desk-top file box or anywhere else that's easy to reach. 2. MEETINGS, MEETINGS, MEETINGS Studies have shown that the average manager spends almost 17 hours a week in meetings, about six hours in preparation and many more in the follow-up stage. If you're holding a meeting, draw up an agenda and circulate it to the staff attending beforehand, keeping in mind time limits for each topic, then stick to it. Other time-saving tricks: schedule the meeting when people are inclined to be brief - before lunch or the end of the day - and invite as few people as possible to limit discussion. At the end of the meeting, summarize the information covered and ensure some follow-up to avoid repetition at another meeting. Smith goes even further: "I advise managers to have attendees stand and avoid bringing in food to [shorter] meetings since people will resist straggling if they're uncomfortable, but managers should also cut the amount of meetings. |
| 3. DROP-IN VISITORS Reduce "people clutter" by placing in/out trays outside your [office] to avoid being disturbed by staff - a common cause of disruption. Keep the office door closed, place your back to the entrance if you have an open-door policy or face away from your cubicle entry so you don't appear receptive to "time bandits". If staff still insist on speaking with you, stand immediately and walk toward your visitor and cordially ask the purpose of the visit. Inform them that you're busy, then set a time limit for your discussion. 4. TELEPHONE HANGUPS Before returning calls, note what you want to say and what you want to find out beforehand. "A task expands to fill the time alloted for it. So, for example, if you schedule an hour to return five phone calls, it'll take an hour," says Milne. "If you have only 30 minutes, limit the calls to six minutes each, and take control of the conversations. Be brief and to the point, and let the person know that your time is limited. If the discussion is likely to take longer, suggest another date when more time is available." When placing calls, respect the time of other employees by immediately asking if you have phoned at a convenient time or should call back later. 5. POOR TIME MANAGEMENT "People who make to-do lists often tell me they rarely get all of their to-do's done by the end of the day," says Smith. She suggests planning when you're going to tackle the tasks and allotting enough time to complete all or part of them. "So, if somebody calls you to go to lunch and you've scheduled that hour to take care of a report, take a rain check on lunch," she says. Another trick: block time each day for interruptions. Let associates know that they can come back during your "interruption time" block. To improve efficiency, Milne suggests doing difficult jobs first, or at a time when you're at peak performance, and saving the less stressful tasks, like reading, for when you're tired (presumably at the end of the day). Spend about an hour of your day finishing smaller, easier tasks and relegate the rest of your time to important projects without interruption. Block off time early in the week for the major projects. Then, if you need more time, you can schedule it before the end of the week. End each workday by planning for the next day, says Milne. That means clearing your desk and returning everything to its "home," then spending a few minutes reviewing the next day's events and goals. "Prioritizing is about not cluttering your day with tons of urgent tasks," says Ruebusch. "I know now how to plan what's urgent and important versus what's urgent and not so important." 6. PROCRASTINATION When we procrastinate, what we're saying is tht we don't see the value of doing a task or get excited about it, says Smith. "The best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time, right? So the best way of completing a task is to tackle an aspect of the project you enjoy first." 7. THE SUPERWOMAN SYNDROME The desire to do everything yourself leaves little time for anything else. Milne believes that delegation is one of the least properly used means of time management. If you're in a position to delegate, the general rule is to pass along work to one of your staff (or perhaps a sub-contractor or supplier) if she can do it 80 per cent as well as you can. But make sure the person doesn't already have a full plate, and give her a deadline. If you're on the receiving end of delegation, learn to say no if your schedule is full, or find out what isn't urgent and leave it for another day. If you don't have a choice, ask for guidance on priorities. "Delegation is basically about looking at what's reasonable to achieve in one day, and knowing how to get those things done," says Ruebusch, who recently hired administrative help around the office. Adds Milne, "Being organized doesn't necessarily mean that you will get more done in a day; it means that you will be the more important things done in a day." by Charmaine Noronha |