Think about saving 13 minutes a week just for organizing keys. That is nearly one work week a year spent finding keys. So let's look at this a different way. For those of you that lose your keys on a fairly regular basis, just organizing your keys give you a week off from work. With that week saved you could take a vacation and not lose any of the work or income for an entire year. Imagine that, a week off every year just because you organized your keys. Or on the other hand, you could get one week better productivity with 50 work weeks the year, just organizing your keys could increase your income 2%.
Let's take a far greater example, two different work trucks. The first work truck is a pretty typical work truck, one that you see running down the street everyday. This truck isn’t shiny and clean but it isn't covered in mud, either. It has a couple of ladders on the roof, scratches down the side and the stickers for the company name are scratched up from the ladders being loaded. Most people drive by this truck and don't even take notice. When the technician gets to his job and unloads his tools, equipment and supplies he puts them everywhere and in no particular order. After he spends 3 to 5 minutes digging out his clipboard for the work order approaching the house, he prepares to start work.
As this technician starts work he has to dig through his truck to find tools and equipment. Typical of a technician with a van in this condition, he probably didn't go through the checklist for the day to make sure he had all of the supplies needed for his work. He will get 80 to 90% through two or three of the jobs and have to return on another day or make a parts run to the local hardware store. Some guys bill all of this time, having no idea they will never see the customer again. They just think they did such a good job the customer doesn't need them again. I myself have gone through three different air-conditioning companies, and didn't find one that was organized until the third one.
For the last two years, I called a local air-conditioning company and asked them to service the four air-conditioning systems for our house. Yes four, it isn't a big house, it is hot is Houston. None of the three companies that came out had the correct filters, which is okay. Given the odd shapes and sizes of the filters in our house, no local hardware store has them either. The first year, the guy crawled all over our attic and announce that we needed some refrigerant. He returned to his shop to pick up the refrigerant taking over an hour and a half. All of this time was on his bill. After paying the bill for $489. He left never to return. Last year, it was a very similar situation. This time, the technician had everything he needed. He just spent 45 minutes digging around his van to find the right connectors and tools. At least this guy was visibly embarrassed that he was not prepared to work. The bill again approached $500.
This year, the guy shows up in a clean shiny van, which was clearly well organized. He was in and out in under an hour with all systems serviced and cleaned. The bill this time, including refrigerant and tax was $250. This is where a lot of technicians and owners get confused, for some reason they think the $489 bill is a better deal for the company. The difference here is the last company that arrived and charged me $250 also picked up a $2000 re-work of one of the systems. Finally and most important, they got my referral.
Sometimes it's a stretch to think that organization can lead to savings in marketing. So here is a simple case where one directly led to the other. Our current air-conditioning company got a free referral, which required no advertising or marketing money to be spent. I think everyone would agree this is the best and least expensive way to get customers. It also showed me he respected my time.
It's a little ironic that we grow up with phrases like “a stitch in time saves nine”, or “a penny saved is a penny earned” and “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”, yet we don't apply this to organization. Organizing our workspace is the foundation that we build upon in order to be more efficient and more productive. The phrase that got me thinking about organizing was “The hurrier I go, the behinder I get”.
I don't know about you but if I can find a way to work where I produce twice as much as the next guy in half the time, that's how I would like to work. Getting organized and staying focused can help you produce much more than your peers, in less time. Who doesn't want to do that? For some reason, lots of people apparently.
Every day I meet people who need to feel important, so they create busywork for themselves. I've also run across people who for some reason don't feel they should succeed. Others are so busy trying to succeed, they inadvertently put roadblocks in place by trying to cut corners and save time. Every corner they cut comes back to take more time. I started off with the example of keys, because that was the first step in organizing my office and my home that I took. It didn't take long for me to see that I suddenly had extra time, since I lost my keys everyday.
My next step was organizing customer files. By creating a single location for all of the customers information like work orders, change orders, service requests, bills and payments. I was able to save a significant amount of time digging out this information each time I needed to talk with client. Another principle related to this was the idea to stop taking phone calls on the road. I realize most of the client letdowns we had were related to me saying I can do something and forgetting before I could return to the office.
I've heard it said that respond-ability is what sets high-performing companies apart. Just like throwing my keys down wherever I went seemed faster than finding the right place for them, answering the call immediately seemed faster than waiting until I was sitting at my desk. I felt I had better respond-ability that way. It turns out I was wrong.
What I found is that if I could be consistent to my clients and respond daily while at my desk with their file in hand, I could get it right the first time, every time. It took a month or so to train them (and me) that I wasn't going to answer their call immediately every time. Once I had gained their trust, and they knew that I would return a call by the end of the next business day, the immediate response was no longer required. I have been told several times by customers they also like the fact that I am sitting there with their file so I can answer any question they may have.
As I've said before, being organized and prepared while being focused on the task at hand, let's me get more done in an hour a day than most people can get done in an entire day. There really are only three steps to getting organized. The first is cleaning up everything connected to getting organized. The second is creating the systems you need to follow some kind of order to stay organized. The third is simply doing it. As in the example of my keys, I first had to find a place for all my keys. Second, I had to create a system to ensure that my keys made it there every time. And finally, the keys have to go there every time. That is strictly up to me. I've created a system for both my home and my office. So I always know where my keys are. This is difficult for me since I don't like keys in my pocket.
It may seem a little overwhelming to organize everything at once. You might want to just organize one task or project at a time. For instance, the first thing I organized was my keys. The second organizing task was the customer folders, these two things alone cleared half of my desk. Cleaning the rest of the desk became easy. I'm also a big fan of the do it, delegate it, date it or dump it program.
It is possible your life is so disorganized, you may need help. If you do, there is the National Association of Professional Organizers. Getting the clutter cleared from your desk and your home can lead to reduced stress, better income, better productivity and potentially more free time. It might take a little while to get over the guilt of being able to perform so much better than others in less time, but you will.
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Thank you for your insights.