Organizing for Success: The 6S Model™
Step 5: Store
You should now only have things you love, need or want to keep. Now it’s time to put your space back together!
The next step, Store, is all about assigning logical homes and containers to your stuff. This can be a challenge, since it’s hard to think outside the box when we’ve gotten used to having things a certain way. But most of us suspect that we could be more organized if our space was planned effectively.
Let’s talk for a minute about one of the more organized spaces (for most people): our kitchens. When we move in to a new home, set up is fairly easy; we put the plates and glasses by the dishwasher to make unloading easier, and our pots and oven mitts near our stove since that’s where we need them when we cook. Things we don’t use so often, like grandma’s china, get relegated to the dining room sideboard of the awkward cupboard above the fridge. And the organizing tools are fairly simple, maybe a drawer divider that keeps silverware from getting mixed up or a spice rack to keep small jars from getting lost on the pantry shelves.
What can we learn from our kitchens that would make our office set up easier? As someone interested in creating productive workspaces, I can’t help but look for patterns, and a few things stand out:
Kitchens are easy to organize because we have a clear sense of what we do there: store groceries, prepare food, eat a meal, and clean up after it.
We’re at our most efficient when things are stored together, close to where we use them.
We’re more likely to use things and put them away when they are stored with few physical obstacles that keep us from getting to them.
How can we apply this to our workspaces? Get ready to think differently! Take out a sheet of paper and make three columns labeled Activity, Proximity and Simplicity.
1. First, think about your job rather than your stuff. What tasks make up your daily work? What tasks should you be doing that you’re not? Take a look at your job description, your business or departmental goals, your annual review, and even your organization’s mission statement to determine what activities should make up your day. List all of these tasks in the Activity column. Example: One of the main tasks of a receptionist might be to answer the phone, including taking messages, forwarding calls, and scheduling appointments.
2. In the Proximity column, list where you do these items and the supplies and tools you need to get those tasks done. In the same example, the receptionist might do this at his desk, and needs the following supplies: a phone, pens, a message pad, the internal phone extension list, and the scheduling calendar.
3. In the Simplicity column, list how you will store the supplies efficiently. In our example, the receptionist might use a desktop organizer to corral these supplies since he won’t have the time to open drawers and complicated baskets when answering the phone. Knowing what he needs to store in it will make it easy to chose the right one.
Something else that’s different with this approach is that we don’t start buying organizing supplies until we have a clear sense of what we want to store. I’m guilty myself of the occasional spontaneous organizing supply purchase, only to figure out back at the office that it’s too small, doesn’t have enough compartments, or is just too awkward to use. Then I simply call it “research.”
Want to use this article in your e-newsletter or website? You can use this material in whole or in part, as long as you include this complete attribution and live link: Productivity consultant and trainer Cristin Lind of Clearwater Productivity helps busy professionals enhance their work and enrich their lives. If you’re ready to get more done with less effort, visit www.clearwaterproductivity.com.