It is spring time… Many of us have already got rid of old leaves on their balcony, their terrace or their garden, maybe already enjoyed one or the other hour in the sun there. But how does it look like at the desk? That would be something, to get rid of the old leaves also there?
Source: 123rf.com
The proposed procedure comes from “Simplify your life”® and is based on the known Eisenhower Principle. It has been modified by means of own experience, it is easy to use and absolutely useful in order to tidy up the desk and also to keep it tidy afterwards.
There are three basic rules, that have to be observed absolutely:
- Each piece is touched only once.
- Physically stored is only what is necessarily needed on paper, everything else is scanned and/or thrown away, as soon as it is processed.
- Pile by pile is processed, always from top to down.
When the basic rules are clear, it can be started. You start with the pile that goes onto your nerves at most. You take the topmost piece and estimate how urgent and elaborate the activity being connected to it is and act according to that:
- Is it littleness that needs to be done, then it is done immediately. The piece moves to the wastepaper bin.
- Is it an urgent and important action which is more than a littleness, then a very first step is taken. The piece moves to the pile “on-going”.
- Is it a non urgent and/or non important action, then it is estimated which consequences it will have not to do it at all. Is there no or minimal consequence then the piece moves to the wastepaper bin. Otherwise it goes to the pile “open”.
- Is it something that you want to store for later look-up then it is stored.
- Is it a magazine which you wanted to read already since a while then it is flipped through. Those pages which are interesting are pulled out and put on the pile “lecture”. The rest of the magazine moves to the wastepaper bin.
In this way piece by piece and pile by pile is processed. If you do it consequently then quicker than estimated before order will be established and much less pieces lie around.
But how can you sustain that? Also that is simple, as with each piece that comes in immediately the same procedure is done. The remaining three piles are processed again in regularly intervals. Already soon they will shrink, maybe even completely disappear.