culprit of stress in 2010 according to new numbers from StatisticsCanada.

A pressure-cooker to begin with, the workplace is made even more stressful by  being disorganized.

“Canadians are in a constant time crunch and experience feelings of stress,  failure and frustration,” says Clare Kumar, a Toronto-based professional  organizer. “Today’s office workers must take stock of both their work habits and  their environment, and take necessary action to alleviate the tremendous  pressure disorganization has on their productivity and work-life balance.”

“By having the right tools in place, Canadian office workers can save at  least 15 minutes per day which works out to a week and a half per year,” adds  Linda Chu, a professional organizer in Vancouver. “This has a dramatic effect on  the health of businesses and their workers.”

Professional organizers say desks in disarray causes a drop of 20 per cent in  worker efficiency; costing the economy billions of dollars in lost productivity.  Studies show the average worker spends at least 400 hours per year searching for  paper documents. “This places tremendous stress on the bottom line for many  businesses that need to return to profitability, especially coming out of the  economic downturn.”

Chu recommends several steps to become more efficient and productive in the  workplace.

• Categorize. Sort through possessions and group them into similar categories  of information and tasks. Identify what things are, instead of getting  sidetracked by thinking of solutions.
• Limit. If space is a premium you may have to choose between what is  important – your space or your stuff. Limit your collections by regularly  reviewing and letting go of information.
• Evaluate. Focusing on what matters most is the key to prioritizing.  Continually evaluate information and tasks as they relate to achieving goals to  increase your efficiency and productivity.
• Allocate. Find a method to store information and possessions to be able to  find what you need, when you need it.
• Remove. Items that are no longer of value or no longer needed can be  removed from the workspace. Focusing on what is important will get you on track  to be more efficient.

see article in The Province

The nine Essential Skills include:

1. Reading
2. Document use
3. Numeracy
4. Writing
5. Oral communication
6. Working with others
7. Thinking
8. Computer use
9. Continuous learning

To help you kick start your continuous learning efforts, Out of Chaos will be offering the upcoming workshop basics:

Get Organized: de-clutter & focus and what matters most!
November 1, 2011 – 7:00 to 8:30pm

For the pilers, filers and stuffers who are running out of space. For those that are overburdened and stressed with too many email, voice mail, paper, and interruptions. This workshop will give you take-away tips on how to get yourself organized by addressing:

• How to begin diving into the piles when you “just don’t know where to start”
• How to prioritize and focus your time on what’s important when everything appears urgent
• Decision making using the “Decide in Five” model to help you focus on what matters most

Class held at the new Healistic Planet Wellness Studio in Kitsilano, 1860 West 1st Avenue, Vancouver, BC

604.689.8034

Pre-register here

Heading into the new year may be just the time to look at order and disorder in the workplace.

Your desk is a mess. You can’t dig out your to-do list from the overflowing pile, never mind tick off any items on it. You have dozens of e-mails waiting to be read. And you keep getting distracted every time a co-worker stops to chat, your in-box signals another message has arrived or the phone rings.

Workers everywhere can identify with that. And it’s only getting worse.

Downsizing and layoffs have resulted in fewer workers but no reduction in the workload. Those who have kept their jobs are functioning in a state of semi-chaos, scrambling to bring order to their work lives. And far from helping us stay on top of things, technology has only made things worse, says Linda Chu, founder of Out of Chaos, a professional organizing firm in Vancouver. Business has moved to a 24/7 economy and workers are now always on. We try to multi-task and it’s not working, she says.

Disorganization in the workplace can range from merely annoying to nearly paralyzing, and it costs companies both time and money in lost productivity.

“Things pile up, people feel mentally defeated and exhausted, and the task of organizing seems impossible,” Ms. Chu says.

Heading into a new year may be just the time to look at order and disorder in the workplace.

You know you need help when
1 . You spend more than 15 minutes each day searching for misplaced items.

2. The pile of papers in your inbox is always more than eight inches high.

3. Your book shelves are used for storing items other than books.

4. You have more than 100 old e-mails stored in your computer’s inbox.

5. You are constantly asking people to resend their contact information to you.

Source: Professional Organizers in Canada website

Calculating the cost of chaos
Your messy desk or jammed e-mail box may not seem like a big deal, but it could be costing you, big time. Find out the real cost of chaos with Tennessee-based DME Consulting & Training’s “cost of disorganization” calculator (http://www.thegosystem.com/cod_start.asp)

Enter your company name, number of employees and average hourly wage to learn the amount of time lost each day to disorganization.

Three common saboteurs to workplace organization, and how to beat them
Clutter Control
PROBLEM: For many, the desktop has become a storage place. Next to the family photos, you might also find yesterday’s lunch leftovers and an Aspirin bottle, not to mention overflowing piles of paper. People are still more comfortable reading physical documents, so they print every e-mail, memo and report that comes their way. Without the time or a system to deal with the material, it, too, ends up in disarrayed piles.

SOLUTION: Make it a habit to always put things away. Toss the garbage and return useful items to drawers when you’re done. Create a system for dealing with paper by segmenting it into three categories: active files; archival materials, research or information on projects you might need; and reference materials, contact info, or items you may need for a future project. The only folder that should stay on your desk is the active file you need to get the job done today.

E-MAIL
PROBLEM: Besides the distraction of checking e-mail messages either immediately or shortly after they arrive, many people also neglect the delete button. These days it’s not uncommon to see 1,000 e-mails stored in an inbox, Ms. Chu says. “It’s a fear of out of sight, out of mind.” But the sheer volume of messages makes it overwhelming and mentally exhausting each time we go online.

SOLUTION: Check e-mail on a schedule and stick with it. For some, that could be three times a day, for others it could mean every couple of hours. “Then get rid of the crud,” Ms. Chu says. Use the functions available on your e-mail program to manage your mail. For example, set up folders and move mail you really need to keep into the appropriate location. Create a rule that sends subscriptions, such as newsletters or news alerts, directly to a folder. The key is to process as much mail as you can as it comes in.

PERSONAL PRODUCTIVITY
PROBLEM: With the constant barrage of interruptions by managers and co-workers, the obsession to check e-mail and voice mail and the Web, and an overwhelming list of tasks to complete made only more onerous by belt-tightening and staff reductions, we’ve lost our ability to focus, Ms. Chu says. As a result, workers often reel from one task to the next without making any real progress.

SOLUTION: Develop a priority action plan each day. A to-do list is a useful way to declutter the mind and determine which items are a high priority. That means when a phone call, an e-mail or a co-worker interrupts, you can decide if the interruption is important enough to trump what you’re currently doing or can wait until you finish the task at hand.

Out of Chaos was originally called in to assist this busy manager with managing her tasks and creating a prioritized action plan. It was very clear early in our process that activities relating to hiring personnel were not this manager’s expertise.

In consultation with Sandra Reder, Managing Partner of Vertical Bridge Corporate Consulting, the following steps in the hiring process can easily bog down the best of managers, especially if they are not in your area of expertise:

1. Placing the advertisement on various job boards, website and possibly in print media
2. Receiving resumes (these days it can be anywhere from 75 to 150 resumes for one position)
3. Screening resumes to the job description and short-listing the suitable candidates
4. Pre-qualifying calls to the short-listed candidates to see how they communicate, as well as to confirm some basic details about them
5. Possibly doing a more in-depth pre-screen on the phone to find out more about their past work experience before bringing them in for face-to-face interviews

“Overall this can take one person well over 20 hours of their time (this is based on 75 resumes if there’s more, then time will obviously go up).”

What is your time worth? Consider the value of outsourcing hiring related activities to the experts and free yourself up to focus on your core business.

Is there a magical secret process to keeping your desktop clear, preventing the mail from littering your kitchen counter, or remembering where you placed those season hockey tickets?

The secret to organizing is not a secret at all. It is truly about finding a solution that is customized to each individual’s needs. Although the dilemmas may be the same, the solutions may be as different as each person.

Out of Chaos wanted to share with you success stories from some of our readers.

Jennifer’s secret in using binders:
“A friend of mine suggested I keep all my invoices in a binder instead of file folders – filing somehow has a way of stacking up and taking awhile to get to it. The binder made it so much easier, as I can sit and watch T.V. while I match and staple my receipts onto my statements. I can also take the binder with me if I’m sitting at the beach.

So, now I’ve decided to make a binder for all the menu flyers I receive. I have a one plastic pocket with tab for each category; pizza, Thai, Indian, sushi, etc. I can then find them easier instead of sifting through my junk drawer to find a particular menu. Works like a charm. My junk drawer now only contains junk, not brochures as well.”

Darren’s secret to controlling email chaos:
“I am in the habit of keeping my e-mail’s Inbox, Sent Items and Deleted Items as free of clutter as possible.

I delete all of the repetitious e-mail messages that form part of an e-mail chain, only keeping the most recent or most relevant message.

Then, at the end of each day, I check my Sent box, file the few important items and delete the rest. I then empty my Deleted Mail box before shutting down.

My e-mail certainly seems a lot less overwhelming this way.”

If you have a solution to an organizing dilemma that works for you, share it with us at info@outofchaos.ca.

Out of Chaos’ team of organizers helps both residents and business owners coordinate the move to make the process painless. Contact us.

Changing homes? Moving offices? Organizing before and during the move will make the transition go a lot easier. Here are some tips to help the move go as smoothly as possible.

Home and Home-based business move tip:

Take what you really need – not what you need to fill your new space. How often do people move into a new home and have “buyer’s remorse”, because the kitchen isn’t big enough, or there isn’t enough storage space? Why are people parking their expensive cars out on the street, at the mercy of any falling tree branch or passing trouble-maker, because they are using their garage for storage?

If they’re really honest with themselves, they may realize that they just moved into a larger home just to store more junk.

Organizing what you really need to keep – and selling, recycling or removing the rest is going to make your life a lot easier. Take the opportunity now to stop the cycle of moving unopened boxes from one home to another.

Office move tip:

Purge, file, box… pizza. The company has grown out of its old space and now finding storage space is mission-critical. Storing records on-site or paying extra for storage space off-site can have an impact on a company’s operational effectiveness and its bottom line.

But what’s going into all those boxes? Proper archival filing is essential for business operations, security and auditing.

Have a staff “purge pizza party” to turn the pre-move organization into an opportunity for team-building. Here’s an opportunity to go through a culling process and ensure that critical documents are put where they will be easy to find. This is also a good thing to do on a regular basis for proactive document protection.

Out of Chaos’ team can help you organize your home or office for your big move and develop a system that will keep you organized for the long term.

More Home and Office Organizing Tips from Out of Chaos
Need to get ready for that big move? Here are some great suggestions from our tips archive.

Tips for the House and Home-Office
Organizing Your Storage and Utility Rooms
What a Mess!

Tips for the Corporate Office
File Jackets and Box Bottoms Hanging File Folders
Tech Savvy Organizing

File Jackets are used in conjunction with Box Bottom Hanging File Folders. Again, cousins to your regular hanging file folder.

With the use of the cardboard strip provided, it expands the bottom on the handing file folder by 2 inches. All to assist you in keeping the hanging file folder in tack by not bending out of shape and off the filing cabinet glides.

Using the appropriate supplies for the volume of information you are storing will help to maintain the structure of your containing systems. Ease of access is your key. If it is easy to find, it will be easy to use.

The Tickler File — or some may know it as a BF or Bring Forward File is a handy tool that I recommend to almost all clients. It is a system that you can use to manage all those loose pieces of paper that do not belong to a specific project file. Usually these papers and tasks are specific to an upcoming event and must be deferred and ‘brought forward’ on a specific date. This system in essence, ‘tickles’ your memory.

It could be game tickets for a future date or a piece of information to take to an isolated event, like a consent form for your child’s next field trip.

Using a Tickler File allows you to file this information on the date that you require it, so that it is always in one place and never lost. Gone will be the days where you pin something on the cork board or leave something on the corner of your desk, only to have something else cover it and hide it from your searching eyes.

What you will need:

• 43 file folders
• 31 labelled 1 to 31
• 12 labelled January to December

Folders labelled 1 to 31 represent one day for each day a month. Folders labelled January to December represent each month. There are also pre-bound tickler files that you can purchase. Contact me if you have trouble finding a supplier.

How this will look in a filing cabinet or desktop filing system is the current month (February) folder in front, followed by 1 to 31 and then March to January.

You will place all your loose pieces of paper in the appropriate day of the current month or in the monthly folders of subsequent months. At the end of each month, you will bring forward the next month’s folder and take out all papers in this monthly folder and file them into the appropriate daily folders.

The process shift that you will need to introduce into your routine is to look into your daily folders every day. In doing so, you will be reminded of all the papers and information that relate to your appointments for the current day.

Clearing your desk, counter, or cork board of all those stray pieces of one-of-a-kind papers and events will not only help reduce your clutter, but it will ease the stress of that ‘out of site, out of mind’ fear that we all have.