Why Get Organized?

“This year I want to be able to get rid of these piles on my desk!”

“This year, I am going to get out of here by 5pm so that I can go home and spend time with my family instead of pushing paper around looking for things.”

Each year, many of us make New Year’s Resolutions to get organized. Occasionally, however, I have a friend, relative, or employee of a client ask me, “Why should someone get organized anyway? My life seems to be going along fine as it is now, and I’m somewhat disorganized.”

Getting a system or process in place to get and stay organized can benefit almost everyone, but people need to see the value in doing it. Despite popular beliefs, being organized is actually easier than being disorganized. Staying committed to following a system is the key. Here are some reasons to make getting organized one of your New Year’s Resolutions for 2006:

For your business.

Customers. Thirty or forty years ago there were only a few choices for buying your appliances, with whom you would work on your financial planning or car insurance, or where you would go out to eat. Today with so many more options, how many of your customers are going to continue to do business with a group of disorganized people if they can find organized people doing the same thing?

Employees. The number one reason that employees leave an organization is not the job, the company, or the pay…it’s their boss. A disorganized, unfocused boss will run off your best talent. The best way to get a group of people organized quickly is to provide them with a role model with solid organizational skills. Once you teach people how to become organized, they want to teach others what they have learned.

Profits. According to an article titled, “Beware the Busy Manager” in February 2002’s Harvard Business Review, 90% of executives were observed to be squandering their time. For those executives that were busy, they were confusing their frantic motion with constructive action. Think of the cost of this wasted time and effort. Time wasted costs companies thousands of dollars a year. (To calculate this for your company, go to “The cost of disorganization” on the bottom right hand side of my webpage: http://www.organize2optimize.com.)

According to the book The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber:

"A business that looks orderly says...

...to your customer that he can trust that your people know what they're doing.
...to your people that you know what you are doing.
...that while the world may not work, some things can.
...to your customer that he can trust in the result delivered and assures your people that they can trust in their future with you.
...that the structure is in place."

For you personally. Research has shown that organized people earn more, are more likely to be promoted on a job, and accomplish more, in part by wasting less time. It has even been found that the children of organized people perform better in school than others with the same IQ and have been found to earn more as adults.

Other benefits of getting organized are allowing you to work from home, easily finding things in your home or office if you are audited, less stress, and more free time.

Perhaps the best reason of all to get organized is from a quote I heard by Glenna Salsbury that states, “Your whole life becomes more meaningful when you are organized, because you are free to focus on others.” Whether those others are your employees, your clients, or your children, that seems to be an important enough reason to me.

Wishing you the best in 2006,

Nicole