In case you haven't noticed, America has been taken by storm by a petite Japanese woman named Marie Kondo, whose best-selling book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, has inspired millions to tidy-up their lives. Her methodology — referred to as the KonMari Method — has been applied to everything from housewares to apps on your phone. Her impact on people is so prevalent that since her book was first published in 2015, she has since been featured on countless blogs and even acquired her own Netflix show: Tidying Up with Marie Kondo.
The Evosus Team isn't immune to Marie Kondo's charm, either. In fact, we've decided to see if the KonMari Method can be applied to more than just apps and household items — specifically database disorganization and general business disorder. After all, we are a software company and having easily navigable, valuable data is important to us. The last thing we want is for our customers to feel overwhelmed by disorganized data.
Here's how you can KonMari your business with Evosus Software:
1. Imagine your ideal lifestyle how you want your business to be organized.
Begin by visualizing how you want your business to be organized and structured. What is your end goal? What do you want to achieve?
As corny as this may sound, visualization is a powerful tool. Not only is it inspiring, but it allows you to think ahead and picture the end results. To do this properly, you need to do more than imagine a clean area or empty file cabinet -- you should think, in thorough detail, how you want your work day to look like. Then, describe it to yourself or write it down word-for-word. It's important that you have a firm idea of what you want to achieve.
Your ideal work day might look something like this:
I come into work and go to my desk. My desk is clean, without any piles of paperwork obstructing my sight. I turn on my desktop computer, open Evosus, and go to Today's Tech Schedule. I review all the appointments for the day. My service techs review their own schedules on their mobile phones using the Evosus Mobile Service app and wave to me as they leave for the day. I review My Action Items for the day and complete my unfinished tasks. I mark my Action Items as complete as I complete them, feeling a sense of accomplishment and ease.
This visualization is vivid and exact, and for the imaginary service manager in question, answers everything they want to accomplish: no papers cluttering their desk, no post-its with today's tasks, no chaos and confusion.
2. Tidy all at once, not little by little
Tidy a little a day and you'll be tidying forever.
— Marie Kondo
It's better to get all your purging done all at once opposed to little-by-little. While this might seem silly to some, it actually makes a lot of sense. Like Marie Kondo points out, people cannot change their habits without first changing their way of thinking. As a result, it's very difficult to commit to tidying every day because that would demand changing your lifestyle, or in this case your daily grind. It's an unrealistic goal that's likely to fail. However, when you perform a marathon tidying session, you will see visible results that will empower you to keep your space in order.
Marie Kondo recommends to "start by discarding, all at once, intensely and completely." Her purpose for his rule is simple: to prevent rebound and to prevent an ongoing cycle of tidying. "Tidy a little a day you'll be tidying forever," she says. For example, say you (like me) have a million files cluttering your desktop. The amount of files you have is giving you an increasing amount of frustration, as it's taking you longer and longer to find what you need. So you decide to organize your files little by little every day, sorting them into their proper folders. At first, this method may seem sound, but I've personally found it to quickly become pointless and redundant. Why? Because as I find myself creating files faster than I am organizing them, thus creating a cycle of chaos. As daunting as it may be, setting aside time to thoroughly sort through your clutter is your best tactic for decluttering your business. Whether it's emptying out file cabinets, sorting through files on your computers, or cleaning up your customer database -- it's best to get it all done at once.
3. Does it spark joy serve a purpose?
When it comes to discarding, Marie Kondo has one specific criterion for deciding whether or not an item is worth tossing or not: does it spark joy? Now, for a business, this criterion isn't that helpful -- I can't imagine order queues, purchase orders, delivery schedules, and whatnot inciting joy in anyone. However, they can inspire a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment when they serve a purpose and are used properly. For that reason, when decided what need to be kept and what needs to be discard, ask yourself: does it serve a purpose?
Another tip from Marie Kondo is choose what you want to keep, not what you want to get rid of. Go in with the mindset that everything can be tossed, but consider whether each item is worth keeping.
Some businesses are data-hoarders. This is understandable, as data is practically the bread and butter of business. However, there are more efficient ways to hold onto useful information and it's important to discern what should be kept and what shouldn't. You can do this by looking at each items and asking yourself, does it serve a purpose? Lined notebook paper filled with notes from a management meeting held weeks ago? It should probably go in the bin. Invoices? You should probably hold onto those for at least six months.
For paper documentation that is deemed purposeful, consider digitizing it using Evosus Software. Try emailing invoices instead of mailing them, creating to-do lists using Order Queues instead of writing them down on paper, and use Evosus Mobile Service to manage service and delivery scheduling.
4. Tidy by category, not location.
One important tenant of the KonMari method is to tidy by category, not location. Tidying room-by-room is doomed to fail as hardly anyone keeps similar items stored in the same place. You, like most businesses, likely have your business documents in various different locations throughout your business. If you decide to declutter your business documents room-by-room, you'll find yourself repeating the same process over and over again and quickly becoming frustrated. It's better to decide on a singular category, gather all the items from that category, and declutter them all at one.
The key benefit of this method is that it puts how much clutter you have into perspective. It's difficult to conceptualize the amount of excess documentation you have when it's not right in front of you in a giant pile. Also, it's difficult to avoid putting off, when it's in a giant pile in the middle of the room.
Need inspiration for where to start? Service route sheets. If you're a business that doesn't use Evosus Mobile Service and hasn't taken advantage of digitizing and streamlining your service department, you likely have hundreds of service documents laying around. Gather all of these together, go through one by one, and decide if any are worth keeping. Has the job been completed? Has the data been recorded? Have you even looked at the document in the past year?
5. Aim for perfection.
Many self-help guides will tell you not to be too hard on yourself, to leave room for mistakes, to take it easy. Not Marie Kondo. Instead, she states that you should aim for perfection and do all your tidying in one go. Again, you're more likely to see results if you perform a marathon tidying session while feeling amped up and inspired to do so opposed to trying to declutter a little every day.
If you use the right method and concentrate your efforts on eliminating clutter thoroughly and completely within a short span of time, you'll see instant results that will empower you to keep your space in order ever after.
— Marie Kondo
Now that you've learned our five tips on how to KonMari your business with Evosus Software, we hope you feel inspired to do some spring cleaning of your own. Contact us today to discuss ways you can start decluttering your business!
COMMENTS