Administrative Assistant's Update

DECEMBER 2013 FR OM TH E E D I TOR Joyce Grant I've had lots of people tell me that I'm super-organized. At my son's school, if someone wanted to know about an upcoming event, they asked me. I always knew. The truth is very different. The truth is, I'm not a very organized person. But to most people, I usually seem extremely organized. And that's because I'm so disorganized that I work really hard to make sure I'm organized. It just doesn't come naturally to me. I think that being organized takes too much time and involves so many micro-details that it's not how I want to allocate my time. Administrative Assistant's UPDATE Administrative Assistant's Update is published once a month by Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. Editorial office vjoycegrant@sympatico.ca S(416) 656-7796 UJoyce Grant, Editor Administrative Assistant's Update Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. 1 Corporate Plaza, 2075 Kennedy Road Toronto, ON M1T 3V4 Customer Service S(416) 609-3800 (800) 387-5164 TFAX (416) 298-5082 (877) 750-9041 vcarswell.customerrelations@ thomsonreuters.com Contents copyright. All rights reserved. © 2013 Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. Contents may not be reproduced without written permission. Brief extracts may be made with due acknowledgement. Annual subscription: $189. Publications Mail Registration No. 40065782 GST# 897176350 2 Of course, you're reading this, thinking "yes, but being organized saves time!" Ah... spoken like a natural organizer. And I salute you—truly I do. One of the moms on my son's baseball team is super-organized. To the point of OCD, actually. On a recent road trip, she showed me that every drawer in her hotel dresser was full of her must-haves: wet wipes, cleaning products (!), and little labelled containers of condiments. Hey, at the team barbeque she was the one who showed up with a squirt of cooking oil (in a tiny, labelled squirt-top container) for my portobello mushroom burger. So I think it's great. The story about the chicken She confessed to me that organizing takes up a great deal of her time. She asked me if I thought she had a "problem." I told her the story about the family that goes to the psychiatrist and says, "Our dad thinks he's a chicken." The psychiatrist says, "Why don't you just convince him that he's not a chicken?" And the family says, "We need the eggs!" I told my friend that if she got her "problem" fixed, I wouldn't have had oil for my dinner, or been able to borrow a cup of Oxyclean for my son's baseball pants. So, while she may have a problem, it was one I was happy she had. She chuckled when I told her this. (I'm being glib and of course, the real answer is that any time you have a problem that interferes with your daily life and the things you want to do, it's a good idea to get some help. But she knows that.) Photo: trekandshoot/Shutterstock.com Being organized is not easy How an unorganized person stays organized I use my day-planner for everything. I also have an electronic calendar, but that's been hit-andmiss for me. I actually take photos with my phone, of my daytimer pages. Yes, I know that's pathetic, but—whatever works. I have a couple of places in my house that are very organized. My home-office desk, for instance. It's clear of clutter. It has to be, or I will lose things. I confess to my closest business aquaintances that being organized is a challenge for me. Most of my clients think that I'm Mary Poppins-organized. A handful of my closest colleagues know that I have strengths—and weaknesses. That's helpful to me, because they let me rely on their organization skills from time to time. I get everywhere early. I like being early, anyway; but it also gives me time to get my ducks in a row before meetings. If I've forgotten something, I have time to get it. If I make a mistake, I own it. If I've missed something because I was disorganized, I admit it. I don't try to blame someone else or justify it—I own my mistake and I find a way to make up for it. There is almost always a way a small mistake can be fixed, especially if you aren't wasting time trying to deflect blame. Organizing does take time. What takes more time is trying to be something you're not.

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