Are you making things harder on yourself? Do you subscribe to the “more is more” when it comes to organizing your home office? Is it possible there are things you are doing that are just fine they way they are?
There are so many filing systems, products and methodologies out there. I’ve used many of them myself, and I’ve seen my clients do the same thing. One thing most of us have in common? Sometimes, we make things too darned complicated. Here’s a quick story:
I went to see a client’s home office, for a “fine tuning”. Her office was one of the neatest home offices I have been in to date. So much so, I thought to myself, “Uh, what am I doing here?” After talking with the client for about an hour we got to the inner workings of her file drawers. She pointed out a large box bottom file labeled “Medical”. Our conversation went like this:
Client: “I know, I know, I should separate them out into Dental, Eye, etc….”
Me: “Why?”
Client: “Well, because I should separate them into categories, cause that’s how you’re supposed to do it. Right?”
Me: “When you need some medical paperwork, can you find what you need in this folder in 5 minutes or less?”
Client: “Well, yes.”
Me: “Then this file is just fine.”
Shocked? She was. Her filing system wasn’t “good enough” for her. The fact was, it was working for her just fine. She had an idea of what “organized” meant, and that was more and more categories. What she had was a system that was simple, useful and working for her. So, I gave her permission to use it.
Are you making something in your home office more complicated than it needs to be?
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Oh I can really relate to the above! What a funny thing.
Sometimes I never can see when things are “good enough” – they HAVE to be perfect. Even when perfection isn’t needed.
Data points, Barbara
I just wanted to thank you for raising this issue of over-organizing (my words).
I believe that sometimes people confuse themselves about what organized really means, and what’s practical and appropriate.
To me, organized means everything you need, want *and value* has a place, and is in that place when not in use (caveat caveat caveat…). There are some details left unspoken in that definition; they are important distinctions, but add to the wordiness.
For example, I believe that *someone else* should be able to come upon your system and be able to find what they need for you (in case of emergency or while you are letting them help you out) with a reasonable amount of time/trouble. Any system design or maintenance beyond that goal is a waste of time to do.
My work history has had 3 occasions for me to replace a person with no transition discussion between us. And let me tell you, the cleaning up and organizing I had to do under a lot of pressure of getting it done made me realize that I don’t want to do that to anyone else, should it come up!
The worst case was a set of piles of records with no notes on what was needed to complete the paperwork for each record. No log of what had been done/needed to be done, and no easy way to figure out how *they* kept it straight outside of their own head. Whew!
Anyway, off my tangent, thanks for a great reminder to keep it practical!