Cleanliness is next to Godliness. They used to say something like that, right?
I think orderliness is the same
And I had it rammed straight down my throat for five years in the Corps. Cleanliness too. I could make your skin crawl by telling you the depths we went to pass inspections.
Nobody organizes, cleans, and tidies up like a Marine. Nobody. We actually faced disciplinary smackdowns when we didn’t keep up to standards.
But that led to me keeping a tight ship ever since
Oh, I strayed here and there in my twenties and the same when my life took a down turn in my thirties. But for the most part, I have always maintained strict order in my spaces, be it at work or home.
As a mechanic during and after the service, I had to know where all my tools were and all my parts. Outside contractors’ info had to be up to date. Location of all team members at all times had to be known. The scope of the job sites I used to maintain, as well as the urgency of some of the repairs, demanded that I kept a well-organized shop.
Hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of dollars were on the line, based upon how well-organized I kept things.
Fast forward to now. I keep my office the same and also my bookmarks and offline files. This should matter to you too. As your company and workload expand, to be unorganized will eventually cost you money too.
And money aside, as the workload becomes more pressing, you’re going to give yourself an ulcer if you don’t keep track of paperwork, files, reference books, pass code books, office supplies, calendar, journals, and logbooks.
You’re gonna want to become more anal in your operations
As you build your website or blog and begin creating written content for the Web, you’re going to have to devoutly focus on indexing well. The easiest way to do this, for all things I think, is to imagine the Table of Contents in a book (another product I can help you create). You have topics (chapters) and you have sub-topics (sub-chapters or subheadings).
You need to be able to start with one main topic and visualize its key components or departments, then arrange all the remaining pieces into the right departments in a way that allows you to remember where you put what. It needs to be logical. You’re going to have to learn how to make flowcharts.
Flowcharts are to become your friend, whether you whip them up from your own head, follow a template, or use a software tool or app that you purchased. You want these friends. To try and do all this “from your head” is ludicrous and unprofessional, barring the photographic memory types out there. But that’s probably not you.
Don’t leave any of this up to your memory and little scraps of paper stashed about. Get professional about your organizational efforts and you’ll experience a hell of a lot less stress as you bring your baby to life.
The photographer of this post’s featured photo: William Felker