The blog

Last time I was in Japan I was fas­ci­nat­ed — as so many times before — by the pre­ci­sion with which the Japan­ese trains come to a full stop right at the des­ig­nat­ed point on the platform.

Back home in Swe­den, I am much more used to hav­ing had to jog along the plat­form until I reach the place where my car­riage hap­pened to stop — in spite of me being on time, wait­ing right under the sign mark­ing the spot my car­riage was sup­posed to stop at, and the train-app’s time­ly reminder of where my point of embark­ing was to be (and hence where I was sup­posed to wait). 

Clear­ly marked

On the Japan­ese plat­forms, whether it is on a giant rail­way sta­tion such as Shin­juku Sta­tion or on a small train sta­tion in the coun­try­side, there is a mark on the ground exact­ly where the door will be once the train stops (and there are often even lines and arrows help­ing pas­sen­gers to queue up in the best pos­si­ble way so that no one has to suf­fer the uncom­fort­able sit­u­a­tion that might oth­er­wise arise). When the train arrives, it stops exact­ly where it is sup­posed to — at least I have yet to expe­ri­ence it not doing so. 

With impres­sive pre­ci­sion, some­one has man­aged to pre­dict where the thing you are wait­ing for will stop, and so can you. Per­haps you can­not pre­dict where your next mode of trans­port will stop, but you can when it comes to all the things com­ing your way on a dai­ly basis.

When some­thing just ends up some­where, things become messy

If you have ever felt that your work sur­face (either dig­i­tal or phys­i­cal) has got­ten clut­tered and messy, it might be because you have received things or put things there your­self with­out them hav­ing a des­ig­nat­ed ​“some­where” they are sup­posed to be put in. 

It can be dig­i­tal doc­u­ments on a sur­face where you can store things, down­loaded apps all in a jum­ble on the home screen, or papers that were hap­haz­ard­ly placed where there was room on a desk. It gets left where it hap­pened to land, piles up, gets messy and it gets hard to find what you are look­ing for. You then have to spend time search­ing for things, you choose to work in the wrong ver­sion of a doc­u­ment, you down­load the same mate­r­i­al twice, or redo work you have already done. Well, you get the picture. 

On the oth­er hand, if you decide exact­ly where a cer­tain incom­ing mate­r­i­al, paper, or oth­er thing is to be placed, what needs to be done once it is there, and where it needs to go next, you will main­tain your good struc­ture and your day will sim­ply run smoother. Your days will be more as you want them to be instead of how they hap­pen to end up. 

Do this

1. Take a few moments to con­sid­er what hap­pens to all the things you receive dur­ing your work­days. Do you get doc­u­ments attached to emails and mes­sages? What do you do with the notes in the notepad after get­ting back to the office after a meet­ing? What about the things col­leagues have print­ed, made notes on, and then left on your desk for you to do some­thing with?
2. Real­ly think about it: Do you have clear­ly des­ig­nat­ed places where you and oth­ers put all these things or do they just hap­pen to end up in ran­dom places and are left there indefinitely?
3. If the sec­ond sce­nario sounds more famil­iar, clear­ly define the cor­rect place for all the dif­fer­ent kinds of things and mate­ri­als you fre­quent­ly receive.
   
   Set tags, put up signs, or fence off the places you have in mind if you want to make it eas­i­er for your­self and oth­ers to with high pre­ci­sion place the incom­ing in the right place.

Lose less

If you have des­ig­nat­ed places for all kinds of incom­ing mate­ri­als, few­er things will get lost or fall between chairs — quite lit­er­al­ly. You will main­tain con­trol over the inflow and will nev­er have to put some­thing some­where ​“for now” and then fret over not remem­ber­ing where it was. More orga­nized, more smooth sail­ing through your day. 

What’s your way?

How have you cre­at­ed pre­dictabil­i­ty in your inflow of infor­ma­tion, mate­ri­als, and things? Tell me!

(By the way, do you know that you can use good struc­ture to make a bet­ter impres­sion?)