Are you struggling to keep the clutter under control? If your desk is dominated by towers of teetering papers, if there are unnecessary objects lying around taking up space, hundreds (if not thousands) of emails left unattended in your inbox, and you hate people seeing your office environment, you’re probably fighting a paper war. Ever noticed how your stress levels rise and energy levels plunge as your unconscious mind tries to come to terms with all the clutter?
I used to feel that because I did my job well, my desk didn’t matter. It wasn’t until I asked myself this critical question, ‘how much better will I do my work if I have better systems in place?’, that I realised it was taking me more effort, and time, to compensate for a messy environment. So, if you are like me and have ever wished you could lay your hands on something faster than you do, or approach your messy town tip of a desk with a sinking feeling, or feel stressed at the enormity of what is waiting to be done, your subconscious is telling you something.
You are not alone. More than 80% of people struggle with keeping their paper war under control. But it is manageable. Over the last 17 years I have developed a simple approach to winning this particular battle and we’ll dedicate the next few blog posts to tips that will help you.
And since so many people really struggle with this, watch also for an announcement about the 3-part webinar series I’ll soon be running. (If you’ve not yet attended a webinar you’ll be surprised how easy they are to participate in – and it doesn’t matter where you live!) In them we’ll drill down into a series of practical steps to help you take control of those teetering piles of paper littering your office!
If you want to get the jump on the official announcement on the webinar series, just email my project manager Sanchia sanchia@gettingagrip.com to be put on the advance notification list and to secure your spot. I’ll only be taking small groups so I can give everyone individual attention.
If webinars are not your thing you can find loads of useful tips in my book Getting A Grip On The Paper War available at http://www.gettingagrip.com/products/books/paperwar.asp
And here’s a tip to get you going until the next post:
Schedule a ‘Clean up the office and workshop’ day. Everyone with responsibility for the ‘stuff’ to be sorted comes to work in old clothes. You might like to order pizza in for lunch, have plenty of rubbish sacks, and make it fun. Dedicate the day to clearing out the clutter and throw away anything obsolete. You’ll be amazed how fast order arises out of chaos!
