Comments on: An (Im)perfect Mess http://timebackmanagement.com/blog/an-imperfect-mess/ Working At The Intersection of Personal Productivity and Lean Manufacturing Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:11:26 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Anonymous http://timebackmanagement.com/blog/an-imperfect-mess/comment-page-1/#comment-1 Anonymous Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 #comment-1 I haven't read the particular book mentioned above but a few years back, in my previous company, i began to become somewhat alarmed at the general disarray of the office. At a certain point i managed to pull the operations manager into a conference room to see if there was some way to get the staff to keep things a little more presentable. My main argument being that i was particularly concerned that clients and potential clients might view the "messy-ness" as a sign of laziness or perhaps that we could simply not be taken seriously. To my surprise he then told me that the "messy-ness" was in fact a sign that the staff were working hard, as they were "so busy" working on our clients projects that they did not have the time to keep their desks in order. And then followed that up with the fact that every individual had their own way of keeping order and that some people simply "file horizontally". So then i tried it, myself. I didn't work. I haven’t read the particular book mentioned above but a few years back, in my previous company, i began to become somewhat alarmed at the general disarray of the office. At a certain point i managed to pull the operations manager into a conference room to see if there was some way to get the staff to keep things a little more presentable. My main argument being that i was particularly concerned that clients and potential clients might view the “messy-ness” as a sign of laziness or perhaps that we could simply not be taken seriously.

To my surprise he then told me that the “messy-ness” was in fact a sign that the staff were working hard, as they were “so busy” working on our clients projects that they did not have the time to keep their desks in order. And then followed that up with the fact that every individual had their own way of keeping order and that some people simply “file horizontally”.

So then i tried it, myself. I didn’t work.

]]>