“Getting organized?  I tried it but it didn’t work.”

An engineer with a public transportation system recently went to her boss because she was overwhelmed with daily work and their filing system was completely ineffective.  She wanted to have me come in to help her develop systems that would make a difference in her productivity and stress levels.

She went to her superior for approval, and that was the answer she received.  Is it any wonder that the engineer is feeling overwhelmed and overworked when upper management hasn’t been able to get organized?

What probably happened in the supervisor’s case is a common scenario.  Many people equate clean and neat with organization.  However just cleaning out your office and dumping old papers without putting in new systems to change behaviors is not the solution.  Being clean and neat is usually a nice result from being organized, but it is not the same thing.  At one point that supervisor probably took some time to straighten out his office, but then a couple of weeks later it ended up looking the same as before the clean-up.  Why?  Because as new materials entered the office, there was no new process for dealing with them.

If you really want to make a change, there are three components:

• Clean out the old stuff and straighten up.
• Create systems so that all new items coming in have a home and a process for following up.
• Develop the habit of using the systems.

Until you have ONE system, not mulitple systems, for each of your basic activities (managing paper, email, tracking tasks, prioritizing) and you use it routinely, you will never be a good time manager.  The stress levels from feeling overworked and pulled in multiple directions will not diminish.