Increase Organisation and Productivity in the Workplace - Using the Rules

Increase Organisation and Productivity in the Workplace - Using the Rules

Are you well organised? Is your desk the model of a tidy efficient person? Does the office exude an aura of professional competent operation? Does your environment have a place for everything and everything in its place?

No? Well you are not alone. There are some people who maintain a clear and tidy workspace but for the majority of us we work the way that suits us which is frequently anything but tidy and organised.

Whilst this may suit us individually, collectively this approach introduces inconsistency. We seem to spend greater amounts of time these days looking for the correct information or working out where to store information we wish to retain. If we were better organised we could reduce the time spent deciding what to do and spend more time doing it. We might even be able to promote information self service where an individual can locate the information they want quickly without reference to another.

As with so many things in life, it is all about investing up front to obtain the returns later down the road. The key to speeding up the storage and retrieval of information is in designing a solution that you can live with; a solution that is easy to understand, easy to manage on a daily basis and clearly delivers benefits that re-enforce the desired behaviour.

To help in designing a solution, a series of rules can be applied to provide a foundation upon which to build a solution.

The Rules

Less is more We all have a tendency to go through life collecting things. The older we get the more we attract. We have this same tendency with paper, an in built desire to file away every piece of paper that we think we may need. Rule number 1 is to challenge every decision to keep an item of information. The fewer items there are to manage the quicker and easier it will be to maintain and locate things when you want them. A good question to ask yourself is this: should the need arise to reference this information in the future, do I know where I can locate it externally? If the answer is yes then perhaps you personally do not need to store the information.

Little and Often We have all seen the amusing cartoons where paper is strewn across the desk in an attempt to model the Himalayas. This effect does not manifest itself over night; it is the result of a sustained effort in postponing filing. Once we allow the mountain to gain emphasis we are left facing a mammoth and daunting task. To avoid this we need to encourage filing and an easily accessible filing system lends itself to this end. Not only should it be easy to access it should also be simple to use; a system that can be explained to a work experience student and quickly grasped.

Write it Down Only information written down can be stored, organised and shared. If it is in the head of someone then the ability to maximise the information's potential is reduced. I always ask the question: what would happen if you were knocked over by a car today. Would someone else be able to pick up from where you left off?

Simplicity It is claimed that people are resistant to change, they prefer the status quo. If that is the case then how is it people do change over time? Back in 1992 few people had a mobile phone. Today most people have a mobile phone. This change has been brought about by the mobile phone demonstrating an advantage over the status quo; it is more convenient than the pay phone and land line. Any new system is up against the same challenge. The simpler the system the easier it is for people to understand, evaluate and adopt.

We all own this Any system that is introduced to manage information has to be embraced by all. Everyone will use the system and therefore everyone needs to own the system. An information management system is only as good as the people who use the system and it needs to be used in a consistent way for all to obtain consistent results.

We have an Alphabet; use it One of the most common methods for arranging words is alphabetically. Perhaps it is because we all know how to use a dictionary that we all seem happy to accept this as method of arranging words. Given that we have a system that the majority of people are comfortable with then, if there is a task to arrange large amounts of information does it not make sense to index that information alphabetically.

Following the simple rules above will provide a sound basis for gaining control of the flood of information that the office is faced with each and every day. An efficient system for managing information that is well adopted by its users will place the business on a sound footing for developing automated solutions in the future.

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