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So many people seem unhappy in their
professional lives. Very few connect that dissatisfaction to being disorganized, which
can make a good job seem unbearable. The good news is that it's easy to correct!
Some of my clients are effective decision-makers on a higher level,
but they have difficulty managing the hundreds of micro-decisions they must make daily,
often in the form of paper -- memos and letters
to read, phone messages to return, mail to sort, reports and proposals to review, and to-do lists
a mile long.
It's not the tigers that eat us alive…it's the gnats!
Do you put "getting organized" on the back burner because of more pressing
things which need your attention? Until you consistently pay attention to non-urgent but
important tasks -- tasks such
as getting organized, weekly planning, self-care, and other preventive kinds of activities
-- the
urgent tasks will continue to multiply, often to a critical state.
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these questions to find out if you need to schedule some time to
get organized:
- Can you consistently find what you need within
a few seconds?
- If you work with others, can they quickly find
what they need in your office when you're not around?
- Is your "IN" box constantly overflowing?
- Does your current system keep you focused on what's
most important and remind you of important follow-up?
- Overall, does your current system work, and do
you like it?
If you answered NO to any of
the above, there are some very real professional and personal costs
to continuing "business as usual." |
You may put off getting organized because
you don't have the time. Or perhaps you'd like to hire a professional organizer, but you
don't want to part with the money. Unfortunately, you may already be spending that money
now in less tangible ways.
To calculate the costs of disorganization, for the next month keep a log of
the costs of doing "business
as usual." Once you have kept this log for a month, multiply the total by 12, and you'll have an
annual estimate of what disorganization costs you or the company you work for.
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TANGIBLE
COSTS OF DISORGANIZATION:
- Late payment fees because you didn't make payments
by the due date
- Overtime pay for support staff staying late to
do a "rush" job you delegated last-minute
- Cost of replacing and retraining burned out employees
who quit
- Cost to reproduce or repurchase something that
you already have but cannot find
- Fees to overnight express something that could
have been sent regular mail
- Forgetting to invoice a client and not getting
paid for the work
- Interest on uncollected fees due to invoices not
being mailed out in a timely manner
- Interest not accrued on cash and checks that sit
around for a long time before being deposited
- Other: ________________
HARDER-TO-MEASURE
COSTS OF DISORGANIZATION
- Inability to expand your business or workload -
you can barely handle what you already have!
- Missed opportunities, lack of competitive edge,
losing customers to competitors who are more organized
- Stress and burnout that lead to illness, missed
work and reduced productivity
- Other: ________________
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IF YOU DO NOTHING ELSE
-- Complete my FREE Organizational Assessment Tool and find out if you qualify
for a complimentary 30 minute phone consultation. My assessment tool will
help you identify areas in your life that you can better organize to give
you MORE time to do what you really want. Click here
to begin your journey on the road less cluttered NOW!
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