Remove Thy Stacks

It’s ten in the morning. You’ve returned all telephone calls, balanced your accounts, handled the yeomanly things that need to be done for your business, and look forward to working undisturbed on a huge research project. After all, that’s part of your time management strategy.

By 11, your desk is full of files, working drafts, research books, printouts from the Internet and you feel like you’re well on your way to completing a big project due next week …

… and then at 11:15, you get a frantic text message. Your #1 client lost some paperwork you sent a month or two ago and desperately needs it now. So, you pull out his file, dig around through it and spread papers all over the top of what you were working on before until you find the missing document, fax it out …

… and an email comes in. The deadline for client #3’s project just got moved up, so instead of two weeks to prepare, you only have four days. You yank out another file, pull out some preliminary spreadsheets and …

… on and on and on. By 7 at night, your desk is a hodgepodge of papers, files, books, spilled coffee and a few Post-Its filled with hastily written notes because you couldn’t find your notepad. Exhausted and frustrated, you go home to work on something else and get away from the mess.

Does this sound familiar? The specifics of what you do may be different, but for many of us small business owners — especially those of us who deal with large amounts of paperwork — time management turns into crisis management and our desks look like war zones.

Returning to a messy desk the next day scatters any semblance of focus. Actually, the unorganized mess tends to pile up even worse because of priorities that need to be handled throughout the day. Time is wasted putting files back in order. Papers get misplaced. Chances are, more gets piled on top of yesterday’s mess.

I’ve personally dealt with files consisting of over 100,000 documents and believe me, the condition of my desk is often an absolute nightmare. I know people who deal with even more paperwork than I do and one, who doesn’t get stressed out, shared a secret with me. “No matter how tired you are, clean your desk every day before you leave,” he said. “Even if you have to stack stuff on the floor or hide it in the closet, make sure your desk is clean.”

I started to doing this; in fact, having been doing so for a couple years now. The difference in clarity and focus is incredible. Granted, with a lot of paperwork, I might have stacks along the floor and credenza, but if my desk is clean, it seems easier to deal with. I’ve made it a practice to file any “old” paperwork right away and only keep the current work in my workspace. Even if it’s placing documents in folders in a cardboard box at the end of the day, it creates a sense of order and control that makes life a lot easier. I spend an hour or two on Saturdays cleaning up files and creating a checklist of what can be closed, what needs to be handled, and so forth.

“Clean thy desk” seems to be an essential stress management rule, at least for me. If you deal with a lot of paper and constant interruptions, try the desk cleanup technique. Ultimately, it’s a lot easier than going home exhausted and returning the next day to a stressful mess.

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