If you are disorganized or know someone who is, this information from shrm.org may motivate you at work.

Workers Grind Teeth Over Rambling Meetings

Meetings that are disorganized strike more of an “ouch point” with workers than meetings that start late or consist of attendees who straggle in, according to a new monthly study examining Americans’ tolerance thresholds for common scenarios in their personal and professional lives.

“Everyone has a pet peeve about even the smallest of tasks that have to be carried out on a daily basis,” Jeff Resnick, president of Opinion Research USA, said in a press release. “In the world of business, the Ouch Point series helps organizations identify these issues and rectify them for their key stakeholders.”

Top 10 meeting ouch points are:

• Disorganized, rambling meetings, cited by 27 percent of respondents.

• People who interrupt peers and try to dominate a meeting, 17 percent.

• Cell phone interruptions, 16 percent.

• People who fall asleep in meetings, 9 percent.

• Lack of bathroom breaks, 8 percent.

• Long meetings with no refreshments, 6 percent.

• People arriving late or leaving early, 5 percent.

• People who check their hand-held devices during meetings, 5 percent.

• Meetings that start late, 4 percent.

• No minutes of the meeting outcome, 4 percent.

“Structured business meetings with a closely followed agenda are often the most productive, particularly when attention spans can be short,” Resnick noted. “Our first Ouch Point survey indicates that a disorganized meeting is a disengaged meeting that will rarely result in the desired outcomes.”

It has come to my attention lately that several individuals I know don’t keep a daily schedule. In many cases these individuals are business owners or are contractors. I want to take this opportunity to emphasize the importance of a schedule.

My guess is if you are not keeping a schedule it is for one of two reasons. 1. You think having a schedule means you are limiting yourself, but I promise you the opposite is true. 2. You simply aren’t sure of the best way to keep a schedule. I am not going to tell you that keeping a schedule is easy. In fact, not everything I have in my schedule is always completed. I have my moments when I just don’t feel like doing what I set out to do.  However it does remind me that I have a goal and that I have to bump it forward to another day. Your schedule is not only a means to planning today, it is also a means to planning tomorrow, the rest of the week, and the upcoming month. Without a schedule you are simply floating through your days, weeks, months and taking on whatever comes. Not to mention you are also relying on your memory, which I do NOT recommend.

So if there is one thing I want you to take away from this entry it’s this… buy a day planner NOW. Or if you are computer savvy use Outlook, iCal, or Lotus Notes. Use your calendar to write down everything you are going to do tomorrow. And I mean everything, phone calls, errands, meetings, anything that will take you more than 10 minutes.  There is no right way or wrong way and you don’t have to do everything you write in your schedule. I am willing to bet, however, that you will be more likely to get things done simply because you wrote it in your calendar.

Recently I took a teleclass about the pros and cons of storage units. Then a friend sent me this article. The statistics are pretty interesting. Are we simply living in smaller spaces? Or are we addicted to stuff?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/08/garden/08storage.html

We are bombarded daily with thousands of decisions. It has become extremely difficult for us to manage clutter, maintain a low stress level and work reasonable hours. So what is one to do? There is no magic answer. However, perhaps this article will give you some ideas. Read on efficiency wannabe’s.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17522665/site/newsweek/