First Unpack Completely

(Time to read: 3 minutes – skim it in 1 minute)

This tip can save enormous amounts of time, frustration and disorder. It is also very important to maintaining a solid reputation as a professional in any field. And it helps a lot in maintaining personal relationships.

It applies when you:

• first arrive at your office, (even if you work from home)
• get home at the end of the day, (ditto)
• return from a shopping trip or running errands, or
• get back from a dream vacation or business trip.

Examples

For clarity, here are some elements of the full iceberg I see in each of these situations.

Arriving at the Office

• Daytimer, address book, to do system, and notepad (electronic or paper) immediately unpacked and set up on your desk, before you do anything else
  – Means you are ready to handle anything that comes at you, and can immediately put information in its final destination, saving you time, aggravation, and embarrassment later.

Getting Home from Work

• Coat hung up, boots on a tray, any lunch remnants in the kitchen
  – Helps to maintain clothing and floors with minimum of effort. Tends to help maintain satisfying relationships with others. Helps to prevent leftover lunch components from becoming a grown-up science project in your briefcase or backpack.
  – This is also a good idea at work as well.
• Daytimer, address book, to do system, and notepad immediately unpacked and set up
  – Same reason as above. And it helps to ensure that you honour personal-life agreements with the same integrity as work ones.

Returning from a Shopping Trip / Running Errands

• Purchased items put in their final “homes” – toiletries in the bathroom or storage cupboard; light bulbs and batteries wherever you keep them; clothing hung up or put in the laundry
• Receipts filed put where they go next in your system. If a receipt needs copying for some reason, I do it immediately, as part of unpacking, before filing the copies where I keep them for business reporting and verification of credit card or bank statements when they arrive.
• Informational material from purchased items either put in garbage / recycling, or filed for future reference
• Shopping bags stored in a re-use or recycle location, along with things like tissue paper.

Home from a Vacation

• Food and related items in the kitchen
  
• Bathing suits washed or rinsed out and hung to dry, other clothing put away or in the laundry
• Toiletries – either back in their “home” locations, if you pack from here for vacation. Or in a “For Trips” storage location if you keep a separate set of toiletries for travel. I like to leave my toiletries case open to air for a few days to ensure it is completely try before putting it away until next time
• “Fun” items like books in their at-home homes
• Gifts where you will be able to find them when you want to give them. So gifts for business colleagues might go in or beside your briefcase. Early Christmas or birthday presents in a perpetual “Gift Box”
• Receipts filed, possibly after being copied (as described above)
• Informational material (e.g., maps, brochures, business cards) either put in the garbage / recycling or filed. (For quick filing, I make up a folder for each trip to hold what I want to keep.)

Getting Back from a Business Trip

• All the same items as for a vacation
• Sorting and filing work-related paperwork, including sorting, filing and entering business-related expenses on expense forms or in your accounting system. Also sorting and filing materials used or produced on the trip itself.
• I set aside two distinct chunks of working time after a trip before I’m officially back at the office – one for dealing with materials and tasks from the trip itself, the second for reviewing work that came in while I was away.

Your Unique Next Step

Is there one additional unpacking step you could add to your life – that would result in greater ease and effectiveness for you?

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