It All Starts with Organization

On a quiet day at the office several years ago, I had an important realization that I'll share with you below:

It all starts with organization!

Good things follow from that, if you'll read on...

Organization leads to clarity...

Which leads to focus...

Which leads to productivity...

Which leads to results.

What does this mean?

• If you approach your work well-organized, you will more quickly get clarity about what you are working on and how it's affected by its context or environment.

  
  

• If you have clarity about what your work is and how to approach it, then you will quickly discover what's important to focus on for achieving your goal.

  
  

• If you have a clear focus on what matters in your work, you will become highly productive at value-adding work.

  
  

• If you are highly productive at value-adding work, you'll end up with great results.

I've found again and again that if you organize your approach to work before trying to do the work itself, the other four stages follow very naturally, and the work ends up being a lot easier to do well. Keep your tools and notes tidy and well-maintained. Write a plan for any effort of more than minimal complexity before starting the work.

Being organized is one of the very best things you can do to succeed at almost anything you want to accomplish. And the best part is, it's free! You just have to choose to be organized.

It all starts with organization!