The Real Cost of Lost

Improve your Personal Development of Organizational Skills

by

Bary Sherman

Incoming Information is impacting today’s workers as if it were a fire hose spraying full force at them.  It is overwhelming to the point where workers are not sure where to put information so that they can find it at a later date when they need this information to do work.  It’s simple and completely lost.  According to our White Collar Productivity Index, office workers are spending about 1.7 hours per week looking for information they have lost.  When mathematically extended, looking for lost information is costing US corporations over $5 billion dollars per year. 

This $5 billion dollars, which is a conservative figure, is only the cost of lost direct individual productivity.  Not taken into account is the cost of poor customer service, other workers ability to do their job, or stress.

This is more about “finding” than filing, and workers can take several common sense, practical steps in personal development to help themselves better manage information, improve productivity, and save time.  They are:

1. Use the “rules” tool available in most email systems to limit the amount of emails in your “In” box
2. Throw away (delete) all information when it loses its “value” to you whether that is after one day or one year.  
3. Multi-subject straight alphabetic filing systems are the “kiss of death” for finding things.  Create a filing system that reflects the way you think.  Create a system as if you were giving directions to someone in your office who has never been to your city before.
4. Use well named file folders; both paper and electronic; and file new documents in the “front” of the folder.  Front to back is how we read and this is the method which supports “finding” information.
5. Create a culture where you work which drastically reduces the number of emails being generated internally.

For helpful tips and proven methods to help improve your finding systems and reduce stress please contact bary.sherman@ibt-pep.com or 760.731.1400.