"In the long term, economic sustainability depends on ecological sustainability."
— “America’s Living Oceans” [Pew Oceans Report, 2003]
Between the time that is lost searching for papers and documents and the cost of all the reprinting because we can't find documents in time to use them, it's no wonder our economy and forests are suffering. In my career as a professional organizer, I have the opportunity to affect both economic and ecologic change especially when it comes to paper-waste. Assessing the productivity of an office begins with the actual arrangement of the office. Choosing and arranging your office desks and file storage has a bigger impact that it may at first seem.
Trying to work around pre-existing furniture and set-ups merely because that's 'the way it has always been' is the first mistake when addressing your office set-up. The consideration of space and placement affects the flow and efficiency of your working environment. Living with arrangements that impede your space taxes both your creativity and your productivity.
According to Brother International, "...76 hours per person each year are lost as a result of disorganization in the workplace." The results of this survey show that over $177 billion is wasted in simply looking for misplaced items/files in the office. Can today's economy afford that? Personally, mine can't.
The collateral effects of this disorganization in our offices are the resources that get wasted and mis-used. The Brother report further goes on to say that "more than one-in-three [of the 800 respondents] say they “somewhat” or “very” often must spend time reprinting previously created documents because they have been misplaced. This figure balloons to 48 percent of Gen Y employees, a group already under severe marketplace employment pressure."
Starting from scratch is daunting. Like re-inventing the wheel. But if the wheel you're working with is square, maybe it's time to save yourself and the world more pain and go back to the drawing board.
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