Archives for Office Organization

Productivity tip: Begin with a cleared surface

After seeing our post last week about his book Twenty, Michael Ruhlman sent me a message saying I’d left out one of the essential components of mise en place. He was right, I had left out one of the best parts! (His message was very nice, by the way. And, it means he actually read the post, which is quite flattering to this fangirl.)

The first step of mise en place, before you pull out a single ingredient from the cupboard or turn a dial to heat up your stove, is to:

Put away everything that you don’t need.

Clear your counter top. Get rid of the clutter. Or, to co-opt an artist’s metaphor, start with a blank canvas.

You run a much smaller risk of making a cooking mistake and adding an unwanted ingredient or missing a step if there isn’t anything else out on the counter to distract you. At the end of the cooking process, you’ll know if you forgot to salt the food because you’ll see a little bowl with salt in it sitting next to the stove. If your counter is piled high with junk mail, dirty dishes, and your child’s art projects, you could easily overlook the missing item.

Clearing the counter top also allows you to focus on exactly what you’re doing. There isn’t anything to distract you, at least that you can control.

This concept of putting away everything that you don’t need applies to a lot of projects that you may encounter throughout your day. It’s perfect for working on a project at work — close all programs and windows on your computer screen that aren’t related to your work, clear your desk of all materials that you don’t need — or even your hobby work surfaces at home. Mise en place is a great way to help you be productive even outside your kitchen.

Posted by Erin on Oct 11, 2011 | 16 Comments | Tweet This

Clutter can kill creativity and innovation

With all the talk on our site recently about willpower, I wanted to bring in career expert and author Jonathan Fields to write about the connection between order and workplace productivity, creativity, and innovation. You may remember him from when we reviewed his first book Career Renegade, and he has recently published a second book on how to channel fear into career success in Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance. Thank you, Jonathan, for taking time out of your busy schedule to share your advice with the Unclutterer community.

Over the years, I’ve noticed a strong connection between the state of my physical space and my ability to do high-level creative work. When my space is in disarray, my thoughts are generally also in disarray. I can still function, I can come up with ideas, write decent-enough content and solve-problems. But, I always know that I’m not operating anywhere near my true potential.

And it’s also not about cleanliness, or complying with someone else’s idea of order. It’s really about having some level of logic to the state of my physical space that works for me, even if nobody else can see it.

Turns out, there may well be a neuroscience basis for this.

Without organizational systems, your brain has to work harder to hold virtual organizational structures in its circuitry, relying on greater levels of working memory. This taxes a part of the brain known as the prefrontal cortex (PFC).

The PFC is also responsible for willpower and it is one of the parts of the brain that keeps anxiety, impulse and fear in check. Problem is, it’s easily overwhelmed and it’s energy is quickly depleted.

When the PFC fatigues, you’re far more likely to both give in to impulse, distraction and resistance and pull away from the work needed to create great art, experiences, ideas and businesses. A depleted PFC is also less effective at tamping down the anxiety and fear that often rides along with taking action in the face of uncertainty, a touchstone of creativity and innovation.

So, what’s the takeaway?

If you’re looking to cultivate an optimal mindset for creativity and innovation, explore shifting some of the organizational/working-memory workload from your brain to more other-than-human organizational systems. Especially ones that allow you to regularly download and capture information and ideas that would normally be held in working memory.

A simple place to start is a voice-capture app for your smart phone or tablet, coupled with something like Evernote to then easily download the recording (Evernote’s app now includes a voice recording feature), to categorize and store your ideas. Or, a pocket moleskine works well for analog types who want to record their thoughts. These simple shifts can change the neuroscience and psychology of the creative process in very subtle, yet impactful ways.

Posted by Jonathan on Sep 26, 2011 | 17 Comments | Tweet This

Three organizing essentials

If you want to be organized, these three essential tips can get you headed in that direction:

  1. Have energy. If you’re tired or deprived of nutrients, simple tasks like returning objects to their storage locations, taking the time to do a task properly, staying focused, and even making decisions are all difficult to do. When you get the proper amount of sleep your body requires and eat healthful meals and snacks you improve your chances of being on task and having consistent follow through over the course of your day. Taking care of yourself makes it easier to take care of the mess.
  2. Own less stuff than you have space to store. When objects aren’t crammed into a space, it’s easier to find objects and return them after you’re finished using them. If your filing cabinet is overflowing, you can’t put new documents into it. When your entryway closet is jammed packed, you throw your coats over chair backs instead of hanging them up on hangers.
  3. Write it down. The more projects, commitments, and worries you have floating around in your head, the harder it is to focus on your work, as well as remember all the stuff you have to do. Get all of your actions out of your brain and onto a to-do list or calendar.

Posted by Erin on Sep 19, 2011 | 14 Comments | Tweet This

Coming back to work after vacation without chaos and stress

Returning to work after a vacation or long weekend rarely goes smoothly. If you’re oblivious to the chaos because you’re still in a vacation haze on your first day back, the mayhem will settle in on day two or three. Your to-do list is more extensive than usual, the backlog of email seems overwhelming, and your reaction time to even the smallest of problems is as if you are immersed in a bowl of thick maple syrup.

The easiest way to avoid this stress and disorder is to prepare for it before you leave:

  • Notify the people you regularly interact with that you will be out of the office. When people know you’ll be gone, they often don’t try to contact you for the small things. This helps significantly to reduce voice mails and emails for things that are resolved before you return.
  • Clear your schedule so you don’t have any meetings or appointments the first day (or two) you’re back at the office.
  • Clear the inbox on your desk and your email inbox so it will be obvious what new items you must attend to when you return.
  • Try to wrap up all action items so you have nothing old to finish up when you return. This may be impossible with the type of job you have, but if you can do it, I highly recommend it.
  • Do as much preparation work for your first day back as you can. Any automated tasks or work you can do in advance, try to do it. You want your load to be as light as possible when you return.

After you return, these strategies can help you to regain order and your sanity:

  • Arrive an hour early to work so you can find your footing before everyone else arrives in the office.
  • Scan the contents of your physical inbox, your email inbox, your calendar, and anything else that has appeared on your desk. Get an idea of all of the new items that you’ll have to do and what old items are still on your task list.
  • Gracefully bow out of as many obligations as possible that would take you away from your desk for the day (or next few days).
  • Schedule deadlines for all of your new action items on your calendar — and keep these deadlines realistic. It will take awhile to get back into the rhythm of your work, so be sure to pad in more time than usual for tasks.
  • As you’re working, alternate between old action items and new action items and between mindful and mindless tasks. Take a break at least once an hour, and don’t forget to eat (your brain and body need the fuel).
  • Mind other people’s expectations of when to receive work from you. Now is the time to under promise and over deliver.

Posted by Erin on Sep 6, 2011 | 8 Comments | Tweet This

Want to be organized? Know thyself.

One of the best ways to create an effective organizing system is to know who you are. If you don’t know your strengths and weaknesses, you can’t build a system that reflects your abilities.

Someone who is easily distracted shouldn’t have an intricate paper filing system based on numbers and codes. Someone who takes his shoes off at the front door shouldn’t have a shoe organizing system in his bedroom. The more a system reflects how you live and your preferences, the more likely it is to work for you.

  • Are you a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic processor? Find out in “Understanding how you process information to help you get organized” and then learn how to take action on those strengths.
  • What time of day can you focus at your best and when are you easily distracted? Keep a log and then “Plan and execute a productive work schedule” that best reflects your energy waves throughout the day.
  • How long can you effectively focus on something? Scientists have concluded that 40 minutes is the average time span for most people. Check out the Science Daily article “Are you really paying attention” to learn more.
  • What do you really like? I don’t mean what are you supposed to like, but what do you sincerely enjoy? Is there a way to integrate these passions into your organizing systems? If you love watching television, can you find a way to watch television and straighten up the house during commercials? If you love birds, can you use bird labels on files in your filing cabinet so that doing filing is more joyful for you?
  • What do you despise? If you can’t stand putting away laundry, can you swap the chore with someone in your house and take over a chore she can’t stand but that doesn’t bother you? Can you hire someone to take over this organizing task for you?
  • Do you know why you want to be organized?

There are hundreds of questions you can ask yourself to learn about who you are and what are your preferences. Once you know your strengths and weaknesses, you can build an organizing system that will be easy for you to maintain and help keep your life less chaotic.

Posted by Erin on Aug 8, 2011 | 13 Comments | Tweet This

Functioning in a printer-less office

Since moving offices more than four months ago, I haven’t yet plugged in my computer’s printer. I keep thinking I’m going to have a reason to use it, but so far that hasn’t been the case. I’ve told myself that if I don’t plug it in by September — the six month mark — I’m going to give the printer to charity.

Living without a printer has become significantly easier in the past couple years. I save important files as PDFs, I attach digital signatures instead of physically signing papers, and I clip articles I want to read to Evernote or InstaPaper instead of printing a copy. And, apparently, I’m not alone in my quest to kick the printing habit.

The New York Times recently addressed this topic and alternatives to printing in the article “Dump Your Printer to Escape the Madness.” Columnist Sam Grobart gives five tips for how to let go of your dependence on a printer, this being his third:

One of the main reasons many people own a printer is because we still live in a world where a scribble of ink on a piece of paper, also known as a signature, is required for many documents. It remains an infuriating process: You have to print the document out to sign it, then mail it or scan it and either fax or e-mail it back to the sender.

An online service, Hello Fax (hellofax.com), keeps a digital image of your signature on file, which you can then position and resize onto any document you upload to the service. Once the document is “signed,” you can e-mail it or send it to a fax machine from your PC. The service can also, for a fee, provide you with a fax number. Incoming faxes can then be viewed — and signed — onscreen.

Even if I plug in my printer before September, I still might get rid of it. I’m fantasizing about what I’ll do with the extra storage space in my office, the money I’ll save, and the frustrations I won’t have when it doesn’t get all buggy or run out of ink or have a paper jam. True simplicity may be found in a printerless office.

Posted by Erin on Jul 21, 2011 | 68 Comments | Tweet This

Thirteen tips for giving a well-organized and informative speech

Being organized can make a positive impact when giving a speech. If you’re disorganized and ill-prepared, your audience is likely to not pay attention and get very little from the information you provide. Conversely, a well-practiced and orderly speech will keep your audience interested and leave your audience members glad they took the time to hear your insights.

If you have a fear of speaking in front of people, I highly recommend taking a speech class or joining your local Toastmasters. If you’re simply looking for some pointers for creating a more organized presentation, try these 13 tips:

  1. You need to be providing an average of one piece of information (or more) for every minute of your speech for your audience to believe that you were worth their time. Think of really good stand-up comics — they are amazing at what they do and they deliver punch lines every 10 to 15 seconds. (Time a Jim Gaffigan routine and you’ll see what I mean. He averages a laugh almost every six seconds.) In a 30 minute speech, you’ll likely only get in 30 memorable pieces of information.
  2. At all points while you’re drafting your speech, consider your audience. You’re not trying to impress them, you’re there to help them. You’re a teacher, not a promoter. Think about what your audience will want to know, and then think of the best way to transfer these 30, 45, or 60 pieces of information. Provide examples, real world situations where they can use the knowledge you’re giving them. Although you’ll be nervous, the speech has very little to do with you and everything to do with the audience.
  3. Once you know what your audience wishes to learn and what points you want to teach them, organize the information in a way that makes learning the information easiest. You don’t have to be funny or the best speaker the audience has ever encountered, you just have to help them to learn information to the very best of your abilities.
  4. When you draft what you want to say, don’t write it out word for word. Outline the important points (those 30, 45, or 60 points mentioned previously) you wish to cover, your introduction and your conclusion, but stop there. If you write it out completely, you’ll sound like you’re reciting a speech instead of having a conversation with your audience.
  5. Bring an outline of your speech with you to set on a table or rest on the podium. If you’ve practiced sufficiently, you won’t need it, but you’ll feel more comfortable with it being there. Plus, if you actually forget, you won’t let down your audience because you’ll have it there.
  6. When most people are nervous, they will want to talk faster than they usually do. Fight this instinct with all your might. Either that, or prepare 35 minutes worth of content for a 30 minute speech. If you don’t speed up when you’re nervous, disregard this item.
  7. Practice, practice, practice. Give the talk to your spouse or a close friend. Give the talk to a video camera. You’ll feel more awkward giving the speech to someone you know well and a video camera than you will to a room full of strangers. If you can get to a point in your practice where you feel okay with giving the speech to your someone you’re close to and a video camera, you’ll rock it when it’s time to give the real presentation.
  8. Get out from behind the podium and make eye contact with your audience. Again, since your goal is to educate your audience, you want to be able to see their faces and make certain that they’re understanding what you’re trying to teach them.
  9. If you are not accustom to speaking publicly, identify at the beginning of your speech that you’ll be taking questions at the end of your speech. This way, you won’t get off track. Then, leave enough time at the end of your speech for questions.
  10. When answering questions at the end of your speech, rephrase questions at the beginning of your answer in case not everyone in the audience could hear the question (“Bob is wanting to know if X is the reason Y exists.”). You may be the only person in the room with access to a microphone.
  11. Be sincere. Don’t put into a speech information that you don’t know backward and forward. Knowing the topic extremely well will help reduce your fears because you’re already comfortable speaking about the subject. When there are questions at the end of your speech, you want to make sure that you’ll know the answer. Again, you’re there to teach.
  12. During your conclusion, let people know how they can get into touch with you after your speech. There will be additional questions and they might not develop until a few days after the audience has had time to sit with what you’ve told them.
  13. Also at the end of your speech, thank people for choosing to come and listen to you. Even if people don’t feel like they learned a lot in your presentation, they will remember you as someone who wanted to help and was generous. This positive attitude typically leads to more speaking gigs.

As long as you are a well-rehearsed authentic educator, it will be easy for you to stay organized throughout your presentation and deliver a valuable speech for your audience.

Posted by Erin on Jul 18, 2011 | 12 Comments | Tweet This

Now back to your regularly scheduled appointments

As much as I dislike going to see my dentist and doctors, I go for all of my preventative care appointments (every six months or once a year or whenever is recommended) to keep my medical costs low. I know from experience that regular checkups are less expensive than emergency care, which sincerely plays the largest part in all of it. These regular appointments are also there for early detection, so small problems don’t become large ones (also saving me money).

The easiest way to stay on top of these appointments is to schedule your next visit before you leave your dentist or doctor’s office. The same is true for hair appointments, car maintenance, and your pet’s veterinarian visits. Along similar lines, appointments for annual servicing of your heater, chimney, and other house work can be scheduled for the next year before the technician leaves your home (assuming you liked the work that was done). If your family enjoys going skiing every winter and you have a favorite place to stay, make your reservation for next year when you settle up your account for this year’s trip. Even though you have no idea what you’ll be doing 12 months in the future, it’s better to get an appointment on both of your schedules early. You may have to move the appointment, but you at least have one to move if you need to.

Regularly scheduling appointments will free up your time (you don’t have to call multiple times to try to get squeezed into someone’s schedule or call multiple providers hunting for someone who can help), alleviate stress (you don’t have to worry about your heater not turning on the first cold day of fall), and likely save you money over the long-term.

Posted by Erin on Jul 12, 2011 | 21 Comments | Tweet This

Transitioning back to reality after vacation

Returning home and back to work after a vacation usually feels like a punishment for temporarily ignoring your responsibilities. There is a mound of laundry to do, a heap of emails and regular mail to process, and a small crisis that must immediately be attended to and which could have been completely avoided had you not left town. If you’re lucky, you’re still riding the high of the vacation and can bear the mountain of tasks without too much frustration. If you’re not lucky, your vacation was a bust and you consider never going on one again.

To help ease your way back into non-vacation life, try some or all of these tricks:

  • Clean before you go. Have your desk at work and your home as shiny as possible before leaving on your vacation. Even change the sheets on your bed so things will be fresh when you return. Doing this means that you will only have to deal with vacation messes when you get back. Ants won’t have attacked your kitchen because there were dirty dishes on the counter and your office mates might actually use your inbox instead of plopping more work down on top of an existing pile.
  • Walk in the door and straight to your laundry room. The first thing you should do when you get home is start a load of laundry of your vacation clothes. Once the washer is going, then you can reset your thermostat to a normal temperature and check to make sure a tree didn’t fall in your backyard (or whatever it is that people do when they first come home from vacation).
  • Take an extra day before heading back to work. I like to think of this spare day as the vacation from my vacation. It’s the day to get reacquainted with your routines. We typically return from trips on Saturdays so we have all day Sunday to recuperate.
  • Arrive an hour early to work. You’ll want to get a solid footing on your day before you’re bombarded by co-workers asking about your trip and giving you more things to do. Scan your physical inbox and your email to search for any you-must-do-this-first-thing-when-you-get-back items. Quickly sort your mail and throw out or shred all junk mail. Review your calendar for the day and create an action list of the most important things you have to do. When other people arrive, you’ll be able to handle whatever they throw your way.
  • Give yourself a free day the following weekend. Playing catch-up with your life can be exhausting, so take a weekend day to sleep in, leisurely drink a cup of coffee, catch up on items around the house, or do nothing at all. If you have kids, this applies to them, too.

What additional tips would you add to this list? Share your suggestions in the comments.

Posted by Erin on Jul 11, 2011 | 40 Comments | Tweet This

The Keystone Demise

Does this ever happen to you: Your home is functioning at its best and chores are getting done when they need to be done. Then, the light bulb burns out in the laundry room (or something similar which is seemingly minor, like you run out of dish detergent or you throw your coat over the back of a chair instead of hanging it up in the closet). Less than a week later, you have dishes piled up on your kitchen counter, clothes spilling out of the hamper, and old newspapers piling up in your driveway. All it took was one itty bitty cog in the machine to break for your entire system to fall apart.

I refer to this breakdown as the Keystone Demise. In architecture, the keystone is the center stone of an arch. It is the piece that is vital to the arch’s success because it makes it possible for the arch to hold its shape and to bear the weight of the ceiling, wall, bridge, and/or doorway. If you remove the keystone, the arch fails, usually bringing down the entire surrounding structure with it.

The Keystone Demise is almost always the cause of an organizing system failure. One small piece is disrupted/broken/compromised and in a matter of days it is as if the organizing system didn’t exist at all. One day’s mail being thrown on the dining table can be all it takes for full-house chaos to erupt.

When you or others who occupy the same space notice the keystone isn’t working properly, its as if the keystone gives license for you and others to abandon your efforts to keep everything organized. In a sense, the Keystone Demise plays a part in the Broken Window theory. The tiny, out-of-place keystone sends a signal that it’s okay for disorder to rule the home or office.

As someone who wants to keep your home and office organized, it’s your job to immediately identify when a keystone is out of place or broken and fix the situation. There are a few easy ways to do this:

  1. Printed closing duties or a chore chart. It seems elementary to write out chores and end-of-day assignments, but these lists can be very beneficial for helping you avoid Keystone Demise. Before leaving the office or heading to bed, review your printed list of closing duties or daily chores to make sure all tasks were completed properly. If they weren’t, quickly do the chore or re-do it. Don’t leave work or go to bed with an essential task undone.
  2. Keep an easily accessible shopping list. Again, this is pretty basic, but having a grocery shopping and errand list can be a huge help in avoiding Keystone Demise. This list needs to be in a place where any of your housemates can effortlessly add to it (right when they notice something is running out or broken, don’t ever expect housemates to have to email you because they won’t), the writing implement needs to be in working order, and you can take the list with you when you go to the store or to run errands.
  3. Having the right tools. This is mentioned constantly on this site, but it needs to be mentioned again in this context. If clothes end up on the floor of your bathroom, then you need to put a hamper in your bathroom. If clothes end up on the floor of your bedroom, you also need a hamper in your bedroom. If you want to shred junk mail by your front door and also shred sensitive documents in your home office, have a shredder by your front door and also a shredder in your office. Having multiples of something isn’t clutter if you actually need multiples of something to stay organized and keep from avoiding Keystone Demise.

In my house, receipts on the top of our bedroom dresser are our broken keystone. If we empty our pockets and just set the receipts down on the top of the dresser, within a week we have absolute chaos in the house. It’s amazing to me how something as small as receipts can cause complete disorder, but time and again they are the culprit. Rather, I should say receipts used to be the constant cause of our Keystone Demise. We now have all the tools necessary to keep this simple type of clutter from accumulating. Plus, getting ready for bed more than an hour before we plan to go to sleep also helps a great deal because we have enough energy to properly process these little slips of paper (and get our dirty clothes into the hamper and all our other end-of-the day chores).

Posted by Erin on Jun 20, 2011 | 44 Comments | Tweet This

Finding solutions to disorder by identifying the causes of disorder

Sometimes the solution for solving a clutter problem is simply identifying the cause of the problem. It sounds obvious, but you may be surprised by how often the cause of the problem isn’t considered when looking for a solution.

I hear complaints all the time that a spouse/partner/roommate/kid (someone else, never the person complaining) leaves items strewn about the house. The complaint usually sounds like, “my husband leaves his dirty clothes on the floor,” or “our son leaves his toys all over the living room.” The spouse/partner/roommates/kids are always named as THE problem.

Granted, the spouse/partner/roommates/kids may be making the mess, but they are not usually the exact cause of the problem. Usually, the problem is caused because:

  1. a convenient storage solution does not exist (the hamper is in the closet, but the husband changes clothes in the bathroom),
  2. no organizing solution exists (there isn’t a hamper),
  3. the person has not properly been trained on how to use the clutter/storage solution (the child has never been shown how to pick up his toys or been expected to pick up after himself),
  4. or the person has a different tolerance level of disorder than the person making the complaint (clothes and toys on the floor may not be perceived as clutter by the person making the mess).

When you properly identify the cause of the problem, it’s much easier to solve it. Based on the examples we’ve been using throughout this post, the problem might be alleviated by:

  1. Getting two more hampers — keep the one already in the closet, but add one to the bathroom and put another in the bedroom next to your husband’s side of the bed.
  2. Buy a hamper and put it where your husband usually drops his clothes on the floor.
  3. Teach your child how to pick up her toys and give her three minutes at the end of every play session to practice this skill. Read more from our archives: here and here.
  4. Have a respectful conversation with your spouse/partner/roommates/kids about your standards of order and their standards of order, and establish agreements and expectations about future behavior. Read more from our archives: here.

Are you identifying the real causes of clutter and disorder in your life? Doing so can help you to more easily find the solution.

Posted by Erin on Jun 7, 2011 | 21 Comments | Tweet This

Ask Unclutterer: Organizing and operating a central supply room

Reader Brenda submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer:

[I'm] looking for guidelines or rules on how to operate a central supply room.

I strongly recommend taking as much from Lean systems as possible when it comes to supply room organizing. If you are unfamiliar with Lean, check out The Toyota Way. In short, the basic philosophy of Lean systems is to trim the fat (waste, unnecessary processes, etc.) and improve the flow and quality of work. These systems apply wonderfully to office supplies because objects like reams of paper and toner cartridges can be counted, tracked, sorted, organized, and replaced systematically.

The five phases (5S) of Lean are: sorting, straightening, sweeping, standardizing, and sustaining. You can immediately see how these concepts apply to office supplies — sort them, straighten them (organize), , standardize them, sweep them (clean them and the room), and sustain the system (maintain).

Start by sorting items into groups by type. Do this in either an adjacent conference room or on the floor outside the room when employees aren’t present (like on a weekend). Group blue ball point pens with blue ball point pens, blue felt tip pens with blue felt tip pens, unsharpened pencils with unsharpened pencils, etc. Also during this time, create an inventory listing all the items, how many of each item you have, and the replacement information for that item (like a relevant catalog ID number from your supplier). If you could have one person creating the inventory in a database while someone else counts and reports, you can work relatively quickly.

Once sorted and inventoried, focus on the straightening and standardizing portions of the project by returning the items to the storage area. If you need to install shelves or bins, do so after evaluating how much stuff you have during the sorting phase. On the shelves, label storage bins and boxes very specifically so that there is a place for everything and everything is in its place (Staples: 26/6; Staples: 23/20; Manila Folders: 1/3 cut, 8.5″ x 11″; Manila Folders: 1/3 cut, 8.5″ x 14″; etc.). Consider using colors as visual cues for even more detailed subdivision — all paper products can sit in bins of the same color, all tools in another color. Make things as standardized as possible.

Any work done in the central supply room should have detail instructions posted nearby. (In Lean terminology, these are sometimes referred to as kanban billboards.) If someone has to ask how to make a photocopy/replace paper in the photocopier/shred papers/unjam paper from the shredder/etc. it means the processes are not properly outlined or posted. Make these posters as part of the straightening and standardizing processes.

For the sweeping/cleaning process, have a weekly time on the schedule to re-organize, evaluate, run a detailed inventory, and clean/dust the room. In Lean systems, the word Kaizen is usually associated with this process. The belief with Kaizen is that there is always room for improvement, so you should be continuously looking for ways to make things better. If the central supply room experiences extremely high traffic, this chore may need to be done once or twice a day.

One person should manage this room and be responsible for keeping track of inventory, ordering supplies, and organizing, evaluating, and cleaning the room. Although one person will be in charge of the room, you’ll still want to allow other employees access to the room. So other people will be able to be good team members and help the supply room manager (teamwork plays an important role in Lean), use pull cards, which notify the supply room manager that new products need to be ordered. (These pull cards are also a type of kanban, and will often be referred to as such.) These cards are slipped into stacks of items, usually before the second-to-last or next-to-last supply, and say something obvious like, “Time to reorder,” on them and include the product code (definitely include the product name or the supply manager won’t know what to order). There should be a collection bin for these pull cards where employees can deposit them to notify the supply room manager. Implement as many standardized processes as necessary to make things easier on employees and the supply room manager.

For sustaining and maintaining, train all staff members how to appropriately use the new central supply room. The person running the supply room will be constantly frustrated if this training is not done well. Training may have to happen more than once, and employees’ abilities to properly use the storage area should be regularly reviewed.

Thank you, Brenda, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column. I hope implementing a Lean system will help to bring order to your central supply room. Also, check the comments for even more insights into using and implementing Lean systems for office supplies.

Do you have a question relating to organizing, cleaning, home and office projects, productivity, or any problems you think the Unclutterer team could help you solve? To submit your questions to Ask Unclutterer, go to our contact page and type your question in the content field. Please list the subject of your e-mail as “Ask Unclutterer.” If you feel comfortable sharing images of the spaces that trouble you, let us know about them. The more information we have about your specific issue, the better.

Posted by Erin on Jun 3, 2011 | 7 Comments | Tweet This

Strategies for staying motivated while uncluttering and organizing

We finally moved all of our large furniture that had been in our our old home for staging into our new home. We reached the point where living out of boxes and feeling like temporary residents in our new home had become tiresome and frustrating, so we called in movers and got the job done.

Although the stuff came in on Saturday, we still aren’t finished unpacking all the boxes. In fact, our living room looks more cluttered now than it did last week when boxes lined the walls. As is often the case with projects like moving and uncluttering, things can be incredibly messy while doing the work.

We’re trying our hardest to keep our attention focused on how wonderful everything will look and feel when it’s put away in its proper storage space. But, I have to admit, our motivation has been waning. It feels like we need as much enthusiasm to tackle the last quarter of work as it did for the previous three-quarters.

To stay focused, we’ve become each other’s biggest cheerleaders. There have been a lot of “good jobs” and “great work” comments exchanged over the past couple days. But, we’ve acknowledged that the time might come when we need to use more rigorous techniques to keep us on task. These are the motivation strategies we may have to use as the week continues:

  • Turn off the power. If checking email, watching television, playing a computer game, or talking on the phone can keep you from doing work, power down these devices before getting started uncluttering or organizing. Based on your level of temptation you may need to unplug the device from the wall, flip a switch on the circuit breaker, or simply hit the power button. You know yourself best, so do what you need to do.
  • Hide temptations. In college, my friend Clark would appear at my door a week before finals were to begin with a box full of distractions. Inside the box would be video games, books he had been reading, his gym pass, and other items he could use to procrastinate. I’m pretty sure one year he also gave me his vacuum. You might not need to physically remove temptations from your home, but boxing them up and putting them in your basement, garage, or someplace out of the way might be a good idea for you.
  • Have an accountability partner. Ask a friend to come over to help keep you on task. This friend doesn’t need to lift a finger, this friend only needs to sit and keep you company while you work. I don’t know how it helps, but it does. Return the favor when your friend needs an accountability partner to help stay on task.
  • Invite guests over to your home. Scheduling a time when people will come into your home can be a strong motivator to get the work finished by a specific date and time.

There are hundreds of ways to stay motivated while you unclutter and organize. These are just the techniques we have on deck. What methods work for you? Share your strategies in the comments.

Posted by Erin on May 17, 2011 | 27 Comments | Tweet This

Organizing regular processes

No matter if you’re paying bills at home or working on a proposal at the office, having a fairly standardized method for completing your tasks can be beneficial in numerous ways. It’s easier to keep track of where you are in the process, it reduces your likelihood of leaving out an important step, and you’ll work more efficiently each time you go through the process if you’re orderly with your work.

Even if the tasks you’re completing are ones you have done many times, it can be beneficial to pause before you do them and list out exactly what you need to do. This list can take place in your mind or you can physically write or type it out, based on the complexity of the work.

After creating your list, analyze it to see if you may be able to improve your speed and efficiency if you take on the tasks in a more organized fashion. For example, running errands might be something you do every day on your way home from work. Simply by identifying these regular stops, you may find you can group the trips to one part of town on Tuesdays and the other part of town on Saturdays to decrease the total time you spend running errands (and your mileage).

It usually takes a few times working through a new process to know if it is going to be good for you. It took me close to a year to refine my writing workflow so that the process helped instead of hindered me. After months of trying different methods, I found that I desperately needed a “Temporary” folder on my computer to save all of my work to over the course of a day. At the end of each work day, I open up the Temporary folder and delete or properly save the files to their permanent locations with appropriate file names. If I don’t use this method, I end up with files in the wrong folders, files with weird names, and I save things that should just be deleted. Reviewing contents of the Temporary folder is an additional step, but one I needed to make my writing more efficient.

Take a few minutes to review your regular processes to make sure you are being efficient with your work. Write out these steps in checklist form, if necessary. Then, use your new organized processes to save you time and energy.

Posted by Erin on May 11, 2011 | 14 Comments | Tweet This

Do your to-do lists need a makeover?

After reading Patrick Rhone’s advice to get items I will never complete off my to-do lists, I decided to do a thorough evaluation of all my lists. Not only were my to-do lists filled with things that I’m certain I won’t do, I was surprised by how many things I will do and want to do that have never made it onto my lists.

The reason to keep lists is to get tasks out of your head and onto paper. Simply writing down (or typing into a computer application) all the things you have to do, you can better manage your schedule, your stress level, and all of your tasks. You can make a giant to-do list with work and personal items all on one list. You can make multiple lists based on where you complete the work (at your computer, in the car, etc.). You can make lists based on a timeline (today, this month, this year). You can make lists in whatever way you choose, as long as the method you pick is something you’ll consistently use.

After evaluating my lists, I realized it was time to makeover my method for compiling information. I’m clearly not capturing information as best as I can to meet my needs. For my list overhaul, I took the following steps to get things in order:

  1. Walk through. Grab a pad of paper and a pen and visit every corner of space in your life. At work, open each drawer, scan every shelf, and inspect every surface for reminders of things you need to do. At home, walk through every room, open every closet, and inspect every area for reminders there. Get in your car. Walk around the outside of your house. Read emails, memos, and notes from friends to put together your list.
  2. Be realistic. Review your list and instantly cross off anything you know you will never complete.
  3. Compare. Pull out your previous to-do list and compare it to the new one you just made. Did you forget anything that needs to be added to the new list?
  4. Create. Based on whatever method you are most likely to use, separate your master list into smaller lists. As you work, be sure to prioritize tasks you must get done immediately. You may prioritize items with highlighters or a letter ranking (A, B, C) or a giant asterisk next to your most important action. Also, be sure to use specific and active language when putting items on your list. “The car” is not specific nor active, but “Throw away trash in car” is specific and active.
  5. Schedule. All to-do items with a deadline should be immediately scheduled on your calendar. Be sure to schedule time to work on the item on your schedule and not only the deadline.
  6. Work. Take care of the things on your schedule for the day.
  7. Review. At the end of each day, review your lists and cross off all the items you completed, make sure you have added all new items to your list, and schedule tasks from the to-do list onto your calendar. Each morning, review your plan for the day and make necessary adjustments. Also, evaluate your to-do list methods every three or four months to determine if your lists and working as best as they can for you. (This review step is clearly where my previous method broke down.)

Do your to-do lists need an overhaul? Is it time you started a list (or two or three) of the things you need to do? Reduce your stress levels and get your lists made and in order.

Posted by Erin on May 5, 2011 | 20 Comments | Tweet This

Book review: Keeping It Straight

Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to read Keeping It Straight — You, Me, and Everything Else by Patrick Rhone. It’s a digital book that is part memoir, part simple living and productivity guide, which through a collection of short essays addresses clearing clutter from your life to greater experience happiness. If you are a Mac user, you may be familiar with Patrick’s website MinimalMac.com.

It is a quick read, but an intimate look at how and why someone has embraced simple living practices. I certainly gained some wonderful insights from the text, and wanted to share a handful of excerpts with you.

I really liked his approach to smart consumerism:

… anywhere I can make a buying choice that I, with proper care and maintenance, will never have to make again for the rest of my life, I do. In those cases, I’m willing to pay far more for an item if I know it will last a lifetime and, even more importantly to me, if I will never have to spend the mental energy making a choice again. Especially because making final choices often requires far more time and research then making regular ones. In fact, I would argue that the more final the choice, the longer it should take to make it. Also, what you spend on the front end usually repays exponentially, and in many different ways, on the back end.

His thoughts on saving time by learning a piece of software and its associated short-cut keys:

if you use an application more than once a day you can save so much time and effort by learning the keyboard shortcuts for the features you use. Do you know how to reload a page in your browser without touching the mouse? How about opening a new window in the Finder? While those may seem like no-brainers to some, I can tell you from personal experience that it still takes me conscious effort to use my keyboard to jump into the Google search field in Safari because the muscle memory of clicking it is so strong. Bottom line, if you find yourself performing regular actions, see if there is a way to automate those.

A non-traditional perspective on creating to-do lists (especially in contrast to the Getting Things Done maybe/someday list):

Your to-do list should be a sacred place. It should be filled only with the things you really plan on doing, things you are constantly evaluating, and things you are taking active steps to move forward and to get them done.

And his humorous, yet poignant view of productivity tools:

The Three Most Important Productivity Tools — The trash can, the delete key, and the word “no.”

If you enjoy a memoir with helpful simple living and productivity advice, Patrick’s book of essays is available for sale at keepingitstraightbook.com and firsttodaypress.com. It is also available for download from Amazon for the Kindle.

Posted by Erin on May 4, 2011 | 4 Comments | Tweet This

AwayFind launches new features to help people curb their addiction to checking email

When I go on vacation, I’m a loyal AwayFind user. The service makes it so I don’t have to check email while I’m traveling, but I still receive emergency messages via text message (or IM, a secondary email account, or a phone call). Instead of being tethered to my email while I’m supposed to be relaxing, I can actually relax because I know only the very important stuff will get through to me.

We’ve previously written about AwayFind’s basic service, so today I just want to discuss a cool new feature that was released on Tuesday. The new service is called “People I’m Meeting Today.”

This feature isn’t really for folks on vacation, but is great for consultants, real estate agents, and anyone who is regularly running from client site to client site. To activate the “People I’m Meeting Today” feature, you link your digital calendar to AwayFind and then set a notification period. If a person you’re meeting with emails you right before your upcoming meeting, you’ll get a text message or phone call. This is extremely helpful if the meeting time or location changes at the last minute, and you’re already headed to the meeting.

Another feature, called “Alarm,” was also released on Tuesday, but I haven’t yet tried it. It’s an iPhone-only service, and it actually rings the phone’s alarm whenever you receive contact from a specific person. For example, if you are waiting on a message about your dream job, instead of checking your phone every few seconds, an alarm will sound if the person contacts you in any way — call, text, instant message. You can have the ringer off on your phone, and the alarm will still sound if the VIP calls you.

AwayFind isn’t free (which is why I only use it when I’m on vacation), but, to be fair, it’s also not very expensive ($15 per month or $140 per year). You can try the basic service for 30 days for free to see if it works for you. And, it should go without saying, but AwayFind isn’t compensating me in any way to write this, I’m sincerely a fan of the product. I’m specifically happy about their commitment to helping people get over their addiction to constantly checking email.

Posted by Erin on Apr 28, 2011 | 8 Comments | Tweet This

Curbing distractions when you work in an open office

Similar to the open classroom trend in the 1970s, open offices became a popular layout design in the 1990s and continuing to today for businesses wanting to increase collaboration, break down hierarchical barriers, and save on overhead (cubicle and permanent walls are more expensive than no walls). For all of their advantages, even the biggest proponents of the open office layout admit there are some downsides to their structure — no privacy, constant noise, usually messy (no one takes ownership of shared spaces), and endless opportunities for distractions.

I’ve worked in a few open offices, and have been able to experience their benefits and disadvantages over the years. I currently work in an open office, and greatly prefer the setup to the alternative. There are certainly distractions, though, and to keep them at bay I usually employ one (or more) of these methods for tuning out the noise when I really need to focus:

  • Pick up and move. If you can find a quiet area of the building to retreat to for an hour or two, and the equipment you need to do your work can transport with you, head to the hideout. Conference rooms, lobbies, and the coffee shop around the corner can be good options for finding a little solace. You can’t run away for the whole day, or even days on end, but a short time away from the noise can be beneficial.
  • Wear ear phones. Even if you aren’t listening to music, the ear phones act as a muffler and send the message to your coworkers that you don’t wish to be disturbed. If ear phones aren’t acceptable in your corporate culture, invest in a good pair of ear plugs to wear when you really need to focus. (To hear your phone when it rings, you may need to forward your office calls to your cell phone and then turn the ringer to vibrate.)
  • Don’t go out of your way to have a super-inviting workspace, at least not all the time. Don’t have a candy bowl on your desk or wind-up toys or novelty gadgets. Keep supplies like staplers and sticky notes in your desk drawer so coworkers aren’t always looking to you for these materials. In other words, don’t tempt your coworkers with a reason to interrupt your work.
  • Come in early. If you know you have a big project on your schedule for the day, come in an hour or two before the rest of the office. No one will email you, call you, or even know you’re there working.
  • Have a clearly marked and empty inbox. If people know where they can set paperwork or materials so you will see them, they don’t have to hand you the items. Your coworkers won’t always use the inbox, but they can’t use it if you don’t have one.

Additionally, there are ways you can create fewer distractions for your coworkers:

  • Avoid using speakerphone at all costs. Even if you’re the boss, no one likes listening to your phone conversations.
  • Turn the volume down on your phone’s ringer and earpiece. Again, no one likes listening to your phone conversations.
  • Don’t call out to coworkers. Get up and walk over to someone if you need to speak with her, unless there is some kind of emergency where yelling is appropriate.
  • Respect the earphones. Email or instant message someone who is wearing earphones if your communication is not vital. Your coworker can respond when he isn’t focusing so intently.
  • Use an inbox. If someone has an empty (or mostly empty) inbox, use it for paperwork or materials instead of interrupting her work.

Do you work in an open office? Have you ever worked in an open office? Share your tips in the comments for curbing distractions in an open office environment.

Posted by Erin on Apr 25, 2011 | 31 Comments | Tweet This

Links for April 21, 2011

These items caught my attention over the past couple weeks, and I wanted to share them with you. They weren’t large enough to stand on their own as full posts, so I gathered them together in a link roundup:

  • The company Electrolux sponsored nine teams at the Domus Academy in Milan to design the kitchen of the future. The concepts are pretty impressive, especially for small space and storage design. Electrolux ReSource.
  • The show Clean House is looking for cluttered homes to be made over for future episodes. The show is filming next season in the greater Los Angeles and New York City areas, and to be considered you must own your home and at least two adults must live in the place. If you want to be on the show, email your name, address, phone number, list of everyone in the house and relationship to them, photos or videos of three rooms in your home that are messy, and a brief explanation for why you want to be on the show to Rose at rosecastingcleanhouse@gmail.com for LA consideration and Amy at assistant@mendenhallmedia.com for NYC consideration. You must submit your email by tomorrow, April 22, 2011.
  • SwissMiss featured a great little product that bands your writing utensils to your favorite notebook, clipboard, or book. The pencil holders are called Clever Hands and they’re made by an artist on Etsy. I think these would be a great organizing tool for students.
  • A website, hysterically named BookshelfPorn, features daily pictures of (usually) organized bookshelves from amazing libraries around the world. After our post earlier this month about keeping clutter off your bookshelf, I thought you all might enjoy seeing these (mostly) amazing solutions.
  • My friend Julie Bestry, a professional organizer based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, recently wrote a post for the Metropolitan Organizing website on how to become a Certified Professional Organizer. If you’ve ever thought about a career as a professional organizer or are already a professional organizer and want to be a CPO, I highly recommend checking out her post.
  • Another professional organizer friend of mine, Allison Carter based in the Atlanta area, has a quick post on uncluttered gift ideas for moms for this upcoming Mother’s Day.
  • Last August, NPR featured a 40-minute segment on Fresh Air exploring “Digital Overload.” It’s a long segment, but it’s interesting as it looks at people’s addiction to multi-tasking.

Posted by Erin on Apr 21, 2011 | 1 Comment | Tweet This

Ready, set, work!

Three easy tips to help your productivity at work each morning:

  1. Prepare everything on your desk before you leave work the previous night so your desk is ready for your work first thing the next morning. Have all the materials you need set and ready to go.
  2. Avoid the break room. This might mean you need to bring your coffee with you in a thermos, but sitting down and getting started working right away will set the whole tone for the day. You can be collegial at lunch or in the afternoon when your energy levels are naturally waning.
  3. Have a clear plan for the day. The clearer your action items and schedule, the easier it is to successfully manage your day. Even if your day doesn’t go exactly as planned, you’ll still get more done than not having any direction at all.

I also do something a little silly each morning that I find helps to get me motivated for the work day. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and say to myself, “Ready, set, go!” Again, it’s totally silly, but it motivates me.

Posted by Erin on Apr 20, 2011 | 4 Comments | Tweet This