I often hear people talk about how they organized their office but it didn’t stick – that a few months later is looked as bad or worse than before they did the organizing.
It is not that the organizing didn’t stick. It’s because they didn’t really get organized. They cleaned.
Cleaning is a clearing process. It is a repetitive process. When you clean, you put things where they belong, clear a space, maybe you even put a few things in order.
Organizing on the other hand is an engineering and design process. As I remove the clutter, I am analyzing to identify the dysfunction in the system that created the clutter. I am concurrently re-engineering or designing a new system to better facilitate the flow of work and information in and out of your workspace. The structure needs to be flexible enough to modify easily as change impacts. It can take a professional to design and engineer the kind of systems you need so the organizing process sticks.
So, are you organizing or are you really cleaning?