How to manage your office and information better. Module 6. Track Personal Management

Learning objectives
How to organize your desk and information better. Why its important ? A well organized work environment can improve your effectiveness by 30 %. Your desk and office. Your files and information.
Survey
1. Whats your favorite classification system of your stuff on your computer and on the Web ?

2. What are your personal tips to organize your working surface, your office, your information, your working environment, considering desk surface organization, noise and light, computer sceen placement, protection from interruptions. Give your advices as a « do and don’t » list of practical recommendations

Questions

1. Entering a manager’s office as a work organization auditor, list the six key points you will check first 
2. List the three reasons why open-space offices are “human intelligence killers”
3. What are the main rules to follow in office organization to help managers protect themselves from junk interruptions?
4. What are the environmental factors that will disturb most managers’ concentration on their tasks?
5. What are the advantages of working at home offices?
6. Define “semi-open” work spaces
7. List the facts you know about good desk and office lighting.
8. What are the main rules to follow for computer screen placement on a desk?
9. What are the main rules to follow for document, folder and equipment placement on a desk?
10. What are the advantages of task-oriented desks over people-oriented desks?
11. What are the advantages of hot desks over personal desks?
12. What is the “proximity rule” in desk and office organization?
13. What are the benefits of having a “heads-up display” in a manager’s office?
14. Compare the advantages and the disadvantages of a fully protected workplace
15. How practically most managers plan their “clear desk” policy?
16. How practically most managers plan their “protection from interruption” policy

Clues for answering

The clear desk policy
It will increase your intelligence by 12 %
Your brain processes all what’s appearing in your visual field
A messy desk catches up to 50% of your brain power with few results
It’s a professional discipline. Clear up your desk before leaving your office. Work on a three-aisle desk
Some exceptions. Creative tasks requesting a floating attention on different sources of information at the same time

Protect yourself from human voices and faces

Hearing human voices decrease your intelligence by 37 %
Human faces are also strong stressors

Buy your own desktop lamp

Switching easily from screen view (200 lux) to paper (500 lux) view

Protect yourself from interruptions

When working at concentration tasks, interruptions cost you from 1 to 19 minutes
At least 20 % of your time should be spend in a protected environment
Offices with bubbles, home work, teamwork policy are all potential solutions
You will never miss an information if your protection is well organized

Check your computer screen placement

No ceiling lighting
No window and screen in the same visual field
The top of the screen should be at gaze level
Use a special desktop lamps

The right work environment for managers

The difference of temperature between the warmest and the coldest surface makes the comfort
“Winter Mood Saving Light” is a great value

Open space offices are intelligence killers

Noise levels are too high
Above 65 dB
Voice levels are too high
Low protection from interruptions. Your accessibility generates more interruptions than necessary

Display “activities and results” graphics on the wall

To promote spontaneous team coordination
Out of sight, out of mind: increase mind shares for your objectives

Working from home

If the office do not offer the right work environment
Your are paid for your quarterly results and not for your presence
The Team Cohesion Index, a measurement of the team spirit, will not decrease if your leadership is well organized

Respect the proximity rule

The more used, the closer
Only one click away for the most frequently used information

An easy and effective way to organize all your information

By 12 types of content (a contact, an article, an order form,…)
By 12 categories (hot subjects)
By 36 key words (most frequent)
By 6 markets (useful for what purpose)

How to retrieve your information faster ?

A. For files and documents

1. Create your personal keywords list of 100.
Allocate 3 key works to all your documents.
Search with Google

2. Create your 10 lists of 10 documents. Examples
Frequent documents
Important documents
Contract / legal documents
Send to a person documents
To be published documents
Confidential documents
Template, reusable documents

3. By subjects tree

4. Calendar located files per objective, project,…

B. For elements
List of my 100 most important figures and numbers
List of my 20 most important contacts

C. Per expertise
List your 10 most frequently requested expertise: Financial, Medical, Managerial, Scientific, Travel,
For each of them: Human expert address + reference site / book address

Tool . Office / Desk check listView check: White board. No faces

• Protection check: Noises ? Voices ? Interruptions ?
• Light: 500 Lux ? Winter Mood Saving Light ?
• Screen placement: No windows ? Gaze level ?
• Information: Proximity rule ?