Leist recommends a Daily Action Sarah Grady, The Container Store’s Center (DCA), a place easily accesvisual sales manager in King of sible from your desk chair, to corPrussia, delves deeper than pointral all your projects in files. Anying customers into the direction of thing not needed on a daily basis filing cabinets or plastic totes. or isn’t a current project should be “The number one complaint is stored in a reference file, if at all usually clutter. We have to get “Ask yourself – is this information them to define what their clutter still needed? Can I scan it? If origiis, whether it is paperwork or filnals must be kept, file it in an area ing. Then we go from there. They that isn’t at your fingertips to keep usually say they have papers evyou DAC items to a minimum,” erywhere. Then we talk them said Leist. through that. What kind of paLilliard, who has appeared on perwork? We try to find out what Mission: Organization a home imthe real root of the problem is. A provement show on HGTV, is also lot of people come in and want an advocate for a DAC for both to Band-Aid a problem. It works home and office mail. She has clifor a little bit but is a mess again. ents who employ her services sort Tell me why it’s a mess. Why is through their mail. Lilliard recomit cluttered? We try to work backwards to try to solve the root of THE ELFA FILING CART PROVES AN IDEAL DAILY ACTION CENTER. mends sorting on a daily basis before it becomes too overwhelming the problem,” explained Grady. to deal with by dividing into “to do,” “to read,” “to file,” and “recycle” for junk mail. The Monster in Your Pocket Some think the world can be easily divided into two sectors. Those who don’t mind the big red number glaring from their No Overnight Fix Before the paper monster takes over, or the inbox breaks an inbox and those who do. Organizers agree on keeping work and personal email sep- all time high score. Taking time to organize regularly is the key to maintaining a productive workspace before the paper arate while being vigilant about unsubscribing to things of no monster takes over, or the inbox breaks an all time high score. interest. Also, if your alert sounds it does not mean to stop your “In a messy office, no one is making the time to actually go current task to reply. through and organize. There is something else more pressing “It’s almost a generational thing. The forty plus crowd, we don’t have a problem in delaying a response to emails. My two and urgent. I’m a huge believer in maintenance. It can be scheduled once weekly, whatever time it takes to get your space ordaughters in college have an immediate response. I am a great believer in setting aside time and responding to emails in one ganized. Most of us don’t do that,” said Bernstein. “Without the on-going and often daily maintenance, there will block. It’s easy to lose track of time when we are switching be back-sliding and that is where people begin to feel overfrom one activity to another,” said Bernstein. whelmed again. Setting time with yourself to work on these Authors of a report from the London-based Future Work Centre, which conducts psychological research on people’s work- areas on a consistent basis will be helpful,” said Leist. Grady notes not everyone needs an overhaul and some do place experiences, said emails are a “double-edged sword” that provide a useful means of communication but can also be a just need file storage or letter trays. “Most people need a system. They aren’t going from one source of stress. Psychologists who warn that constant updates hundred percent disorganized to Miss Perfect overnight have become a “toxic source of stress” “The inbox is not a catch-all for all e-mail. Instead, think of so it has to be something they can adapt to otherwise they won’t do it. It has to work with their lifestyle and be someit as the processing center for anything that still requires acthing they can get excited about,” said Grady. tion. Any other e-mails should be deleted, filed or forward to Think finding time on your now organized planner will be someone else. Having a workable e-mail electronic structure is difficult? advised,” advised Leist “Does that meeting you scheduled need to be one hour? Can Leist suggests Quick Steps in Outlook to quickly process what you need to accomplish be done in 20 or 30 minutes? If e-mail and “project” folders where you can file e-mails regarding a specific project that don’t require additional action on so, you’ve gained 30 to 40 minutes of time to answer e-mails and return calls. Too often I see meetings blocked on people’s your part. Starting all of these files with the word “project” will keep them in order in Outlook version prior to 2013. For certain calendars in one hour time blocks with absolutely no time to do anything in-between let alone take a bathroom break. Rethink versions of Outlook you can drag and drop folders so all of how you schedule your time” said Leist. your folders are in one place. gp-biz.com
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