Office Organization? Fuggedaboutit!

[Wgreen]

Well, well, well. What have we here? A piece in The Harvard Business Review [HBR] about (dis)organization. http://blogs.hbr.org/schrage/2012/01/tip-for-getting-more-organized.html

ADDers are disorganized by nature. We were born that way. And it’s often frustrating for us and almost always annoying to others. But now the HBR is asking us to take a step back and reëxamine the merits of organization. The generally accepted notion is that when we’re organized we don’t waste precious time and energy looking for the things we need. Therefore, Organization=Efficiency. But does it?

Many of us whose desks look like war zones have long maintained that, despite appearances, we know where things are. When we get “organized,” (i.e., clean up the mess) we lose things. We function quasi-efficiently as our own search engines as long as we don’t hide things from ourselves in some file cabinet. Now the HBR suggests that, at least on a computer desktop, organization is—or may be—a waste of time. That’s because all-knowing, never-forgetting search engines can find things more efficiently than we can file them away. Makes sense to me.

Now, if I could just find some device that would help me find my three-hole punch. It disappeared… six months ago…I think.

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[trashman]

good morning W Greene. I can see by your post your brain has been active. I believe the simplest way to find your three hole punch, is to go out and buy another one that you’re sure to trip across the one you are looking for. LOL

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[Wgreen]

The Trashman Corollary: Time spent looking for any misplaced object should correspond to the value of that time v. replacement cost. I like it.

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[nellie]

Actually makes perfect sense

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[billd]

That explains why I suddenly have 4 staple removers..

Geesh, I lose things mess or not.

My wife says she’s going to hire my D-I-L to come in and organize my filing. I said – go for it!

I’ve lost more hours and days looking for papers, or whatever.

I did have a very organized office once. It was neat, clean, organized, looked very nice. That was my first day here. And the last day it was like that.

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[cloud1]

Oh if only I could sell all the duplicates of the stuff I buy! But like Wgreeen indicates time is money and the frustration isn’t worth ratcheting up so it is best move on. In the past wonderful assistants kept the crazies at bay but lacking a decent professional right arm these days the office nearly explodes with chaos. Thankfully I have a two person office where both of us work opposite days so a closed door keeps it barely noticable. The six or seven corpoarte visitors that happen by keep the walk ways clear. Good thing they think my services are worth it! Organization is perspective and subjective isn’t it really?

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[Wgreen]

Now we have this from the Telegraph (UK):
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/9873942/De-clutter-your-desk-if-you-want-a-successful-career.html

The news just keeps getting worse and worse! How depressing. Next thing you know, they’re gonna tell us we need to get our projects done on time.

Over in the Blog section, Rick and the gang are plugging a webinar on managing money. But how on earth can we manage money we don’t have because we have messy desks and keep losing our pens? I think we need to figure out how to MAKE some money before we need to concern ourselves with managing it. But that’s just my opinion.

Now what did I do with my mouse so I can click submit? Oh, here it is…

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[Patte Rosebank]

As you read articles like that, bear in mind that they are generalizations, and all generalizations are inherently flawed, because they fail to consider the fact that there are always exceptions.

GOT THAT?

ALL generalizations are inherently flawed.  (Including the one about all generalizations being inherently flawed.)

Though, the one about decluttering being essential to success, genuinely IS inherently flawed…

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[Wgreen]

Hey, now wait a minute — all generalizations are NOT inherently flawed. The very word implies there are exceptions. (Otherwise, the word “rule” would be more appropriate.) “Generally” simply means “most of the time.” If I were to say, “As a generalization, casino gambling is a bad investment strategy,” my statement would not be flawed, even though there are many people who hit jackpots. The only way a generalization could be “flawed” is by being usually NOT true. But I digress.

Back to clutter. Larynxa, I sympathize with you. I like the HBR’s take. And while I’ll concede that getting organized has its advantages, I would suggest that if an ADDer has a job where poor organization could be a career buster, s/he is probably in the wrong line of work.

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