EDITORIAL FEATURE
Getting Organized:
You Don’t Work in a Vacuum
BY Holly Uverity CPO®, Office Organizers
O
ften people say they’re comfortable with
their clutter; they know where everything
is and their lack of organization and time
management skills don’t affect anyone
else. Those people are wrong. No one may ever
tell them but their poor planning absolutely impacts everyone they work with – or for.
If you are one of those people, your disorganization affects your co-workers if you:
Have a messy desk and/or have no filing system
If your desk is messy and/or you have no system
for keeping track of your files, your co-workers
will have to wait for information from you. Making people wait while you look for something
wastes their time and impacts their workday.
Don’t have a clear agenda when making a call
Making a rambling call or leaving a rambling
message forces the recipient to listen to the
message more than once, interrupt you to ask
you to get to the point or bite his/her tongue
and let you ramble – all the while being irritated. None of these options are good. Have an
agenda for your call and be able to quickly and
clearly articulate what you need and when.
Work reactively instead of proactively
People who work reactively have no priorities or
plans for their days; they simply work on what’s
bubbled up to the top. If you are always working on what’s on fire now, you may often have
to ask your co-workers to rearrange their schedules to accommodate what’s on your plate. Not
only are you interrupting what they’re working
on, you’re also being rude. Plan your work and
you’ll get more cooperation, and gratitude, from
your co-workers.
Don’t Delegate
Delegation is an underutilized organization tool.
16 SMALL BU