The following description was sent to me, with a question as to how to approach dealing with this situation so that better time management skills were put into place.

One couple I know deserves an award for their Carefully Coordinated Disorganization. The husband “Jack” is an entrepreneur and runs a consulting business from home. His lovely wife “Betty” is a great teacher but not much of a housekeeper. And neither has a game plan to store important documents and information. This is a disaster just waiting to happen—and it does, almost every day.

Jack is a visual man who likes to be able to see whatever he’s working on. Since he’s working on a lot of projects, he has a lot to keep track of. All his papers are kept in unruly piles, which cover every flat surface of his home office. He laughingly calls his filing system “it’s-in-here-somewhere,” but insists he can put his hands on any document or material when he needs it.

The bad news is that since he always has to go through at least one pile, finding anything can take half an hour. In the process of finding one piece of paper, he usually discovers another one that he’d needed to follow up on. One search is preempted as Jack pursues yet another half finished project.

The only good thing about Jack’s so-called filing system is the sense of accomplishment it gives him, from making so many happy little discoveries. His home-based business is going into a tailspin, but he’s not ready to change.

Betty is Jack’s unwitting accomplice in his rolling disaster. She never finds the time to initiate a user-friendly filing system, but always has a minute to relocate one of Jack’s piles. Deciding where a pile of papers should be moved to, or which of his other piles it should go on top of, isn’t hard for Betty: she just looks at whatever document is on top of a pile and moves the pile accordingly.

Jack has convinced himself he doesn’t need to get organized, because he knows exactly where everything is; and Betty feels like she’s getting things organized by moving a pile every time she walks past Jack’s work area.

I understand how difficult it can be for the partner and assistant who is also involved in this business. The first thing I would counsel is that you cannot “get someone organized” if they are not willing to make changes or do not see the need.  None of us like to change, even when we know it is a good thing, and it takes time to develop the habits that will sustain that change. 

Jack and Betty need to be aware of how unproductive their patterns are.  If you can demonstrate what a difference organized office processes could make and got them motivated, then you can begin to introduce methods that add to productivity.