Being that I have been the one to blog about a tidy home office in the past and how it can make things easier for bookkeeping and help your overall sanity, I thought I would share first-hand my experience with the insanity of trying to dig out from a lapse in being my usually organized self.
As most of you know I have been in preparation for my new daughter’s arrival, being that she was due on Independence Day. I have been working extra days in the truck and neglecting my office duties a bit as a result of this preperation. This combined with a slough of new opportunities since I received my new CNG powered Freightliner Cascadia created a sort of “perfect storm” for chaos within my home office! I choose that analogy to describe it because that is exactly what it looked like rolled through my office when I finally got around to getting it reorganized this past weekend! I am all for a good cleaning session every few months to get rid of loose clutter that may accumulate on my desk, but this bag of recyclables to go out for shredding (pictured here) is a little more than I like to see piled up. It literally created small piles that I had semi-sorted it into when it would come in, creating a "mountain" effect.
Although there was quite the mess to be had within this pile of rubbish, it was kind of like a treasure hunt of sorts! I found my favorite stapler, brand new pack of highlighters and a missing power cord under the mountains of paper. Now that I am seeing my desk the way it is supposed to look, I can now begin to refocus my efforts on the success of my business and all together feel that much more like my organized self. It is all too easy to lose important documents this way, which can have detrimental effects on your business. Luckily that was not the case for me in this episode, but I would not have wanted to find a lost tax estimate payment stub or something important and of that nature while going through everything.
Now that summer is in full swing, I may have missed the “spring cleaning” season, but I am glad to have reverted back to my detail-oriented ways. Now that everything is back in its place, I was able to see first-hand the importance of keeping up with paperwork. Whether it is an expected or unexpected change that causes a lapse in your paperwork filing and record keeping, be sure to get back on top of it right away. The longer you wait to catch up, the harder it will be to get organized again. It is far easier to stay in the habit of organization than it is to dig yourself out of the aftermath of not doing so in the first place!