Blog - How to Get a Better Organization?
Contents
- Context
- Preliminary Mind Map
- Lambda's Experience - Paper Sheets and Ring Binders
- References
- Your Collaboration
Your Collaboration
Do not hesitate to collaborate by sending us your comments by Email: blog@argonauts-it.net (do not modify the subject).
Context
This blog supports the project ppm suite.
The blog content is, of course, based on classical management approaches, but we voluntary use simple and not technical terms and explanations.
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Lambda's Experience - Paper Sheets and Ring Binders
Describe the Current Status (ASIS)
| This anonymized photo depaints the initial status! You can observe loose sheets and ring binders, all dealing with different subjects. These range from official documents to be kept carefully to handwritten notes to be dealt with appropriately. The materials are messy and sometimes in duplicate. |
Define Goals (TOBE)
In general, goals are often necessities to do business more efficiently or simply desires and wishes.
In this case, we would like:
- to have more time (i.e. to retrieve documents quickly)
- to have more space
- to have a right view on our duties (e.g. to be able to handle documents in time, like invoices)
- to have things tidy (is it not important for inspiring trust?)
- to have as much as possible zero paper organization (ecological imperative?)
- to have a pretty office (is it not important for being in good spirits?)
Understand What Makes an Organization Weak
The weakness is temporary (one time or periodically), the situation is progressively deteriorating for some time, or it has always been like that.
In this case, the situation is progressively deteriorating for some time. Why?
- deferring to the future:
- lack the courage (e.g. boring job, task seeking overwhelming, confused with no evident starting point)
- overly complex classification and storage systems (e.g. dispatch bank statements in several files like the insurance one, rather than keep all statements in one place)
- wrong estimation of what is useless (severities, priorities, act within the short term perspective)
- avid curiosity (e.g. attraction to novelty, "social networks" addiction)
- procrastination ("avoidance of doing a task that needs to be accomplished by a certain deadline" [2], related to excessive emotional burdens [1], such as the feeling of loss induced at the end of an activity and leading precisely to postponing this end systematically, or such as memories hard to bring back)
- excessive foresight: afraid of having to buy again something we had, fear of waste, or the desire to respect for the environment
- affective attachment: regrets, losses, memories, or need to keep a link with our roots
- possession instinct
- bad habits: no or bad time management education, "social networks" addiction...
Understand What Makes an Organization Strong
Understand What Are the Ways to Reach the Goals
The current approach proposes to thrown away as much as possible your objects. Do you agree or not? We recommend having a more discriminating approach. Do not be ashamed to follow your own rules! Don't feel guilty to throw away or to keep objects (e.g. why do not offer your childhood toys for which you have no attachment anymore? or why do no keep your first Dinky Toys with which you were so joyful?). These choices in most of the time, are the reflection of a rich personality!
We divide the problem into the following four main approaches:
- time and places
- sort criteria:
- roughly, sorting consists either to keep belongings (including archives) or to discard belongings (put into the bin, give, or sell), by removing all the ambiguities
- be careful that sometimes we miss a thrown away object!
- do not ask the problem in terms of "do we keep or do we discard this object?" but use simpler questions
- instead, proceed in two steps:
- first, ask the question "can I discard this object without problem?"; decide based on the following characteristics:
- obligations, duties (e.g. legal document like a diploma)
- necessity (I use, and I need this object, by example a winter coat)
- utility (e.g. a candle to prevent discomfort due to the power cuts - and do not forget matches ;-)
- ability to find and redo (e.g. keep a reserve of buttons for a homemade cardigan)
- futility, worthlessness (e.g. unremarkable shopping bag)
- redundancy (e.g. the same dictionaries)
- bad condition (e.g. damaged dishes, except valuable antiquities ;-)
- impossibilities (e.g. too wide dining table when we are moving in a smaller flat)
- etc.
- next, ask the question "do I keep this object?"; in this case, there are three possibilities:
- we must keep this object (see the obligations and duties here above)
- maybe we should keep this object (see "precautionary principle", we have then to balance its positive and negative points, e.g. not matched drinking glasses which are useful in everyday life, but not lovely enough)
- I would like to keep this object (see "sentimental attachment" and "memories" which are important parts of our mental equilibrium, and we may have our own preference criteria about them - subjectivity -, therefore we propose to sort objects based on your preferences and to keep only those you prefer the most depending of constraints; e.g. clothes of your children which could evocate more or fewer memories but also take more or less space in your cupboard)
- process:
- prepare the criteria to decide for keeping or discarding belongings
- estimate enough time to get the job done
- fill our calendar with the estimated duration
- choose the places where the belongings will be sort, put in place and stored
- prepare a place to sort the belongings
- move all belongings in this place, preferably by sorting kind (e.g. memories, books, clothes)
- proceed step by step (kind by kind):
- prepare the places where the belongings of a given kind will be put in place and stored
- sort the belongings (destroy or keep), and put them in the right place
- habits to Keep a Strong Organization
References
- [1] Procrastination. Wikipedia Community. Published at wikipedia, 2002 to present.
- [2] Empowerment Series: Generalist Practice with Organizations and Communities. Karen K. Kirst-Ashman and Grafton H. Hull, Jr. Brooks/Cole Empowerment Series, Cengage Learning, 2016.
Your Collaboration