My Organized Biz

Know thyself: The key to getting ahead of your stuff

by Jennifer Hofmann on May 6th, 2008

(www.myorganizedbiz.com) - Have you ever had to dig to find a piece of paper? (Who hasn’t?)

Generally speaking, the stuff on your desk is made up of projects in progress, things “to do” that aren’t urgent, and miscellaneous stuff you don’t have a home for. Beyond that, there are file cabinets and bookshelves and closets that contain storage. There’s a lot of stuff around!

One day it dawned on me that all of this paper - every last piece of it - was eventually going to end up in the trash can.

It could be tomorrow or it could be after your death, but all of this stuff you’ve got is temporary.

When will you deal with it?

In my Inspired Organizing class, we’ve been talking about the concept of office maintenance. The root of this word means “to hold in your hand” - to physically pick the thing up and do something with it. Maintaining your accumulated papers is an important key to having a resilient business and organized office.

Souns bone dry, doesn’t it? Keep reading, though, there’s more to it.

See, creating a habit of picking up things in your workspace and deciding what to do with them can be a really profound way to care for yourself and your bsusiness. It gives you an opportunity to make decisions about things you’ve been considering. And maintenance helps your business and your brain stay in a state of flow, rather than stagnancy.

How do you like to maintain?

When it comes to maintaining one’s office, there three kinds of people: Schedule people, Tending people, and Buddy people.

Schedule people like to treat their office like a real client. You like to make appointments in your calendar that set aside time to work on maintaining your office. This system works as a reminder and it helps you prevent procrastination.

Tending people treat their office like a houseplant. When the office starts wilting and getting chaotic, Tending people will take time out and deal with the clutter. You’re not crazy about being pinned down to a specific schedule, but when things get out of control, you go into a flurry of activity to get it back again.

Buddy people treat their office like a team. Buddy people like to have real live humans involved in the maintenance of their office. Having someone’s support that you’re accountable to is key. Having a sounding board is extremely helpful because the companionship is reassuring and it helps you stay focused.

It’s important to know that no maintenance style is superior, just unique to you. If you haven’t done maintenance in your office for a while, give some thought to what approach might be most helpful for you. And take the next step.

The end goal of maintenance is to help bring each paper, each item, to the next place it needs to go. Sometimes it’s to a file or back into the mail, sometimes it’s the trash can or the recycle bin. If you take one item at a time and choose its next destination before moving on to the next, it can be a few short minutes before your office is a spacious, invigorating place to work.

Do you know what kind of maintainer you are? What is your preference?

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POSTED IN: Declutter and downsize, Organize, Systems and structure