Organize

Have you ever contemplated the complexity of the natural order that surrounds us?  Plants will orient themselves to receive that optimum sun exposure.  Trees tend to grow perfectly vertical- as if they have a built-in level. Animal will organize into groups that optimize their potential.  We are also wired to organize.  Some more than others- but all of us have a need for order in our lives.  

 

I am an organizer.  I have developed skills through the years to organize complicated processes.  As a builder, you must have the construction process and your work site organized in order to control the chaos.  For some, organization can be a daunting task.  Here are some basic ideas that you can use to get started:

• Break it Down-  If you have something complicated or large that needs to be organized, break it into smaller pieces.  This might be organizing into files, piles, or groups.  Find a commonality and group items together.  
• Separate-  Group items together and then separate them.  Use visual aids or other ways to distinguish your groupings.  I like to use color.  Color has a way of connecting with our brain.  If you know a particular item is red, you can easily pick out red from other colors and avoid combing through to find something.
• Connections-  Determine how each item relates with the others.  A handy way to do this is to whiteboard.  Write down each of the items and connect them to show any relationships or ordering. 
• Weeding-  Weed out any uneeded steps or processes.  Consider the time or workload of the particular processes and combine processes to level the workload.  
• Monitoring-  Provide built-in monitoring and reporting so that you can measure and benchmark the process.  Provide methods for feedback from line workers and the end product user.
• Improvement-  Set up an interval for review of the process for improvements.  If you do not have a set interval (yearly, monthly) you will skip this step.  Force yourself to do the process review at a set interval and be objective.

This process is best accomplished with a group.  This group does not have to be experienced, often times it is better if they know nothing about the process.   Their questions will often be the most revealing and refreshing. 

Organizing takes time and resources.  You have to commit to STOP- and this is often hard to do!  However, the time and costs to organize always pays dividends.  Why don’t you take time today to consider things in your life that need to be organized?  I guarantee that you will see significant rewards from your efforts!