Tidiness

Recently, I have received some comments from those who happened to visit that my workstation seemed relatively empty. I cannot decide if they are meant to be compliments or hints. They either perceive me as a neat person or that I have less work to do.

This emptiness is partly due to my aspiration to be a minimalist. A cluttered place often aggravates my claustrophobia and drastically reduces my efficiency. However, this emptiness is mainly due to two rather embarrassing blunders I have previously encountered.

Incident 1
A few years ago, one of my colleagues dropped by to request some notes. Then, I was way behind in filing and piles of papers stacked on my workstation.

I could not recall which stack of papers I have left the notes, so I began to search through the piles. Suddenly, my workstation seemed to balloon in size, with papers everywhere. After a wait of 15 minutes, he gave up and joined in the search. He was showing disgust while helping me leaf through the loose sheets. My whole professional image was tarnished instantly. At that time, I thought he was being overly intolerant, until I popped by his workstation a few weeks later.

He was out of office that day. He wanted me to retrieve something from one of his drawers. Initially, I was rather apprehensive, thinking that I might need to spend ages searching through his drawers. I was astounded to find that his workstation was cleaned and tidy with no loose papers lying anywhere. This tidiness was not superficial, ie not just restricted to places people can see. It has extended to the insides of his drawers. I managed to find what I want within a short while. If not for the fact that I needed to go through the different drawers since he could not recall which drawer it was, I would have taken even a shorter time.

From then onwards, whenever he was at site meeting or on leave, I have obtained standing permission to take what I need from his workstation and return after use. All the times I have been there, his drawers have always remained neat and tidy.

His disgust at my disorganization was totally justified.

Incident 2
History repeats itself. Despite the prior blunder, I have committed a similar blunder again.

A few weeks after I joined the company, a small pile of loose papers has gradually accumulated on my desk as a result of rather backward filing. Filing is often a job which I procrastinated even though I am fully aware of its importance. When my boss came by to ask for some documents which she has passed to me, I began searching through the pile frantically and to no avail. Not wanting to cause me further embarrassment and stress, my boss has requested me to search for it before passing it to her later. Fortunately, I managed to locate it later.

Moral of the Story
I will try to accelerate my filing and find free pockets of time in between meetings to catch up on my filing, so as to maintain a neat workstation.