I thought this was already old news, it weren’t slaves who built the pyramids in Egypt. I wonder if in the future archeologists come to the same conclusion when they unearth today’s offices…

I’m terrible at this, my desk’s always a mess, but the secret is rather simple. The secret of a clean desk is that everything should have its place. If everything that you use has a place and if you place it back after using it you don’t get a situation like the image below.

The slides of my presentation at the Economist Intelligence Unit are available here:

economist_090616

Picture taken by Stefan Didak.

Clutter is a class of diseases characterized by uncontrolled aggregation of paper and stuff on one of the employee’s desks and the ability of this stuff to invade other desks and office areas, either by direct growth onto adjacent tables or desks (invasion) or by migration of the stuff to distant sites (metastasis). This unregulated growth is caused by a series of acquired or inherited mutations of alien files within storage units (often from employees who have long left the company, or are still there but have been long forgotten), damaging  information that define the business functions and removing normal control of the business operations.

Treatment:
It should not be confused with Functionalitis, The first step in getting treatment for the disease is getting a correct diagnosis. This is important to do quickly because our WorkVitamins research has shown that the sooner you get diagnosed and treated the better the long-term outcome.

From David Allen’s book called Getting Things Done

From 43 folders:

“The book describes a relatively simple methodology for dealing with the “stuff” in your life, where “stuff” may be things to do, people to talk to, appointments to keep or projects to manage and complete. The book has a strong focus on what is termed the Next Action: the very next thing you have to do on a given project or activity.

The core of GTD consists of a sequence of routines for dealing with incoming claims on your time. These routines are intended to provide a system for dealing with tasks that takes things off your mind by being external and trust-worthy:

1. The Collection stage is where all stuff is gathered together in an unstructured manner. This stage involves writing down whatever things one can think of that needs doing (possibly using trigger lists), and all places where relevant information might accumulate, such as in folders and drawers, are emptied into one place.
2. The Process stage is where these items are sorted, and the further activity needed by them is decided. For each item, one asks:
   • Does the item require further action? If so, we can either (i) do it now, recommended for tasks that can be completed in under 2 minutes, (ii) delegate it and place it on a monitor list, or (iii) defer it, by assigning a next action to it and placing it on an action list.
   • If not then we should look for any value the item has. Might the item suggest future action given further thought? Then we shouldincubate it, putting it on a sometime/maybe list. Does the item have archive value? Then file it.
   • If the item demands no action, is not a spur to future thought, and does not have reference value, then it is junk and you can junk it.
3. The Organize stage takes these sorted items and puts them together in a form than can be used through the day for allocating tasks to time.
4. Regular Reviews ensure the organisation is a system that can be trusted, by scheduling collect & process stages to ensure that nothing escapes, ensuring that projects are associated with sensible next actions, pruning action lists of irrelevant actions, and looking over sometime/maybe lists for new spurs to action.
5. Finally, through the working day, the Do stage uses the organised task lists to get things done.”

Why indeed? A question I posed at Linkedin. Todd Gates is posing a lightly different question when he asked: “Why do we have to work” in his book Hunting, Gathering and Videogames. Watch him explain his ideas below, very interesting indeed.

“PART I: WHY DO WE HAVE TO WORK?

Chapter One
*Hunting, Gathering, & Videogames* gives a historical overview of why we’ve always had to “go to work,” tracing the common link between the workday of the prehistoric hunter and gatherer, the first millennium B.C. farmer, the first century A.D. pottery-maker, the nineteenth century assembly line worker, and today’s videogame programmer. ”

Why should companies have private offices? 

According to this post the benefits of a private office are:

* Fewer distractions.

* Ability to personalize the space, to make yourself more comfortable, without distracting others with your personal preferences.

* Ability to have a radio/MP3 player running, for background noise (and filtering out others’ noise), without bothering anyone else.

* Ability to use speakerphone if you need to type while you’re talking, without bothering anyone else.

* Ability to close the door and put a “DO NOT DISTURB” sign up if you’re working on something critical and need to work without interruption.

* Ability to close the door if you’re working on a Security-related item, instead of having to take who knows how long going to who knows where to a secure workstation setup”

We have challenged many of our clients whether they should have a private office or not. The arguments that it all depends on the line of work is only an excuse I think. We discussed the issue with law firms, consulting companies and banks. Apart from the need of physical separation (Chinese walls) required by FSA regulations, the need for a private office is quite often only a status confirmation. I believe that we should look at the job performed and the needs rather than status, thus confidential calls could be made in meeting rooms close by, how many private telephone calls are managers making anyway?

The benefits of not having a private office:

* Managers more approachable to the staff,

* Reduced real estate costs, often managers are spending most of their time in meetings, visiting clients etc… we noticed that the occupation levels of private offices is actually quite low. 

* Less hierarchy, many companies talk about a flat organization, but the lay out of an office often says it all. Directors in private offices, managers sitting on desks slightly away from the team and team leaders sitting at the head of the table. 

* Better communication, for example studies in call centres have shown that when managers, sit on the floor with their teams to have a significant impact on production and motivation.