Organize + Energize: Are You Creating More Work For Yourself?

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Kristin MacRae, GoLocalWorcester Organizing Expert

The time you save putting off that minutes-long task today are the hours of time you'll waste doing it in the future.

We all want more free time. How much time do you think you are wasting due to your disorganization? Do you think you create more work for yourself? There is always a more efficient and productive way to function, whether it is at work, in your home office, or at home. Some of us have to dig deeper than others to find it, but it’s definitely attainable.

I’ve been talking to many people recently that create more work for themselves. They let their emails accumulate instead of sending them over to the appropriate folder right away. They wait until their pile of paper mail gets sky high before tackling it. They also wait weeks before they do any type of filing in their office. There are also the people that complete a task in 10 steps when it really only has to take 3 steps. There are many more examples that I could give you, but I think you get the picture.

You may be thinking that you are the only one that operates this way. You are not alone. This happens to so many people. It happens in the home, office, and even the home office. The patterns of disorganization are the same with each individual. Even though the patterns are the same, the systems that we create are different for each individual because everybody functions different.

The perils of procrastination

A simple task that could have taken you 1-2 minutes to complete is going to be a headache for you months later. Months later when you go to work on the excess that has formed, it’s going to take you hours, even days to get back to square one. You have just wasted precious time.

I know people will say they are busy and they don’t have time to put files away or open their mail or tackle simple household chores. Think about how long it takes you to complete that task. The task itself probably only takes a minute to tackle.

You are going to be in a bigger mess months down the road if you don’t address it at that moment. I have seen it happen. Weeks later, that file that you were supposed to put away is at the bottom of a very large pile sitting on your desk. You may have even gone to search endlessly for that file and all the while it was at the bottom of the pile on your desk. Not only have you created more work for yourself, but you have wasted time in the process searching for it.

There may have been an important business opportunity or an invitation in that pile of mail that was sitting on your desk, but the time has passed and so has the opportunity.

So what now?

Take the time to re-evaluate how you function. Getting organized is a process. I love this quote by Steve Jobs: “Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.”

Really think about how you utilize your time. Any situation I find myself in, I always ask myself if there is a simpler, more efficient way to tackle it. Start developing ways to streamline procedures at home and at the office. You will have more free time than you know what to do with once you streamline, simplify, and get organized. Don’t make it harder than it has to be.

Kristin Carcieri-MacRae, the founder and owner of Organizing in RI, has always enjoyed finding creative ways to streamline the environment around her. She has appeared on air on Patricia Raskin's Positive Business Radio and her articles have been published in the Rhode Island Small Business Journal and New England Home Life. Kristin's CD, Organizing Basics, is a 1-hour guide for the person who wants to get organized but doesn't know where to start. She is also available for organizing workshops. Tune into her weekly radio show, Organize, Energize! on Mondays at 8:30am on www.talkstreamradio.com.