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Sunday, October 3, 1999
A messy desk full of stories
Each piece of paper is a decision not made
My desk is a reflection of the community. There's plenty of turmoil. The Greater Corpus Christi Business Alliance brouhahas and the travails of the Columbus Fleet are well represented among the teetering stacks of paper.
There's beauty and promise - several photos of my 3-year-old daughter.
There's optimism and hope for the future - packets of information about the proposed $15 million water park, a new phone company, a new restaurant, the port's waterfront project and other ventures.
There is cleverness and imagination - two of local resident Frank Whaley's postcards depicting cowboys saddling and riding giant jackrabbits.
There's sanctimony - a piece of anti-smoking propaganda depicting a cigarette butt and the rear ends of a cow, a sheep and a zebra. The caption says, "Butts are gross."
But mostly there is indecision and failure to take responsibility - a ton of paper that I can't bring myself to throw away. You see, they contain great story ideas. Those stories may never be written, but if I throw away a piece of paper, that means I'm admitting it.
You may think I have no one to blame but myself. That's not true. It's the Planning
Commission's fault. If we had better zoning laws, my desk would be safer, cleaner and more orderly. And if I were to accept the responsibility, would that truly be a reflection of the community?
Many of you can relate to the problem of a messy desk. I know, because trained experts have told me so. But I also know because, when I sent an e-mail inquiry in search of those experts, I received several confessions.
"It is my single biggest problem," wrote Judy Walters, a New York publicist. "I just can't seem to get to the bottom of the pile, and when I do clean up, the papers somehow proliferate as if they had a life of their own. I know I waste about 20 percent of my time looking for things."
Sound familiar? Come on, admit it. Barbara Hemphill, an organizational consultant, regularly quotes a finding that the average worker wastes 150 hours a year looking for misplaced information.
"When I began speaking, I expected to be challenged and I often was," she says. "But not in the way I expected. People often say, 'It's more than that in my office.' "
Turning to the pros
It may be hard to believe that companies pay well-educated consultants to help employees clean off their desks, but it's true. Ann Taylor, a public relations professional in Houston, hired consultant Sue Pistone to do it and she's glad she did.
"I still have my favorite saying taped above my computer: 'Tyranny is always better organized than freedom.' But thanks to the organizational help from Sue," Taylor wrote, "I gained about another hour a day of increased productivity. I'll never have a completely clean desk, but at least I'm more presentable now."
Place for everything
Pistone has quite a system.
"First I come in and find out why someone wants to get organized, and that's important. Some of them love chaos and don't want to get organized."
After she analyzes the person's job and work space, Pistone does something really scary.
"We sit down at your desk and empty everything out. And then I go into the theory that there's a place for everything."
There's a place for pens, pencils and other tools - the mechanical drawer. There's a place for personal items, and so on. Her system involves a 1-through-31 file, with each number corresponding to the day of the month. That's where you file all your papers, depending on when you need to act on them.
Those papers don't get filed until you've made a decision on each one. You have to decide whether to act, delegate or - eek! - throw it away.
I'll have to give that a try. But first, I have to go look for my pen ... .
Tom Whitehurst
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