Disorganization in workplace can be caused by many factors, such as frequent interruptions and hidden time-stealers. By identifying and combating these chaos-causers, you and your staff can get more accomplished in less time. Here are five tactics to try yourself and recommend to your staff to increase their organization at work.

Avoid Frequent Visitors

Interruptions are one of major causes of chaos in workplace. If you and your staff experience frequent interruptions, which are eroding productivity and causing chaos, recommend that they establish a ?quiet period? which occurs same time each day or week. This period is a time to focus on doing important work, taking no phone calls or visitors. It doesn?t have to be a long time, perhaps only an hour or so, but everyone needs to make it clearly known when they are in midst of their private work time so that others can plan accordingly. Suggest each person create a sign to hang on desk or door that says, ?QUIET WORK PERIOD IN PROGRESS 11:00 TO 12:00? to alert visiting co-workers who may be apt to stop and chat.

Consolidate Communications

A follow-up to establishing quiet period is to limit as much visiting and phone calls between staff as possible. If people are frequently going back and forth to each others? desks and calling each other with questions, there is a lot of walking and talking going on but perhaps not a lot of productive work. Encourage each person on your staff to consolidate trips by keeping a notebook or folder for each other co-worker that they frequently need to communicate with. Label each notebook with a person?s name and every time they have something to ask ell/consult with that person about, they make a note in their notebook. Then once or twice per day, they can make their rounds, visiting each person whose notebook has entries for that day. This system of consolidating communications serves four purposes:

1.It keeps people from running around office all day losing productive time.

Information is power. But unless you can find information you need, at moment you need it, you're powerless. Consider all books, magazines and articles you save. You may be saving them "to get around to reading", or if you've read them, you are afraid to throw them away "just in case" you'll need to access information again. They pile up higher and higher. And what of stacks of paper that cover your desk? The following six questions will give you some perspective and will help you organize it.

1. What good is information if it is lost in piles? If you can?t find it, it?s worthless.

2. Could you find same information at library or on internet?

3. Will information quickly become outdated? If so, you're wasting valuable space by saving old publications or articles, when most current information is on internet.