Organization From Chaos

God doesn't like chaos. The Universe doesn't like chaos. And people don't like chaos. Then why do we have chaos in our life? When was the last time you paid any attention to the chaos you have around you?

Now I know that there is certain chaos you have no control over, but we know that day comes after night. Night comes after day. Planets have been here forever in this universe, and they all move around at a certain speed all the time and they haven't collided yet. If they were in chaos, like sometimes in our lives, what would happen? I cannot even imagine; it’s beyond my comprehension.

So if such a big universe works in a systematic way, why can’t our lives be like that? Now I know that on some of these universal principals, we have no control. For example, if you walk off a tall building, the Law of Gravity is going to pull you down whether you like it or not. None of us can come close to mimicking the ongoing, consistent eruption of Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park, but we can learn from this controlled, organized, consistent approach. All we need to do is to bring the same type of organization into our life.

I have a very dear friend, by the name of Mark Meyerdirk. When I met him through Bob Proctor and Loral Langemeier, he brought a lot more organization in my life than I had. Any time I feel like things are chaotic, and any time I feel like I’m not having an organized system or life, Mark Meyerdirk is always there to help me put that back together again. Ever since I have started becoming more organized in my life, the every day cycle has become a lot easier, because I know where things are, and I know what is expected of me.

The other way I have defined organization in my life now is an ‘action cycle.’ If I have planned properly and I act upon it, the chance of having emergencies and chaos is reduced. This would not happen if I have chaotic things all around me, whether it is in your personal life or professional life or financial life. You can have all these three cycles organized to bring predictable, consistent results.

Study any successful people on this earth and you’ll find out that they all have consistent, organized, predictable results, and they came as a result of having proper organization in place. During my consulting services, I have gone to many practices, many offices, and many lecture seminars and sometimes I am amazed to see how unorganized offices or practices are.

I will tell you about one consulting job I had. The doctor came to pick me up at the airport, and I was very thankful to him for his kindness. But when I sat down in his car, I was confused for a few minutes. I wasn’t sure I would find my luggage when I arrived at the hotel because of the mess in his car. Now that’s an example of chaos.

So if I'm not organized at my home, I'm not organized in my office, and if I can’t even have my car organized to a certain degree, do you think God and the universe will reward me? The reality is that if I have an organized life, I have a better chance of receiving predictable results. I can also make my action cycle more timely and more predictable because I know what is expected of me and when is it expected.

To give you another example: When I left for Jamaica for a vacation with my family, the roof of my office began to leak really badly. We had this system in place, so my office manager, Marilyn, was able to take charge. It was in her organizational skill to maintain the building. She found the roofer; she took the estimates; she contacted the insurance company. When I came back from my vacation, my roof was already fixed without my input.

Now if I didn’t have this organization in place – if I didn’t have these responsibilities and action cycle in place – can you imagine what the outcome could have been? They might have called me in Jamaica and I might have had to cut my vacation short to come back. So, organization is really about actions, which are determined ahead of time to avoid any emergencies and unseen situations that might get out of hand.

Organization also places two more things in your life, and that is responsibility and accountability. Now you know what responsibility means. Responsibility means my ability to respond in a situation. If somebody has assigned me a task and I complete it, that’s only the partial picture of responsibility. Responsibility means I’m able to act when I am called upon to complete and handle the situation in front of me.

Organization also brings accountability because then each person knows what he or she is responsible for. And if that task or that process is not completed, you know who is accountable for it. So organization makes your life more effective.

Now, how do we put organization into our lives? Let’s take the professional life first. In a simple task of creating organization in our office, we took a big sheet of paper and hung it in the kitchen. Starting from the beginning of the day until the end of the day, whatever activities we did, we each wrote down what we had done. We kept writing day after day after day and at the end of the week, we had more than 300 activities that we had performed during the week.

Then, we took those 300 activities, and we divided them into different areas based on where they fit, for example, finances or maintenance or quality control and ordering. Then we took those 300 activities, and we divided them on the chart under each category.

We then tried to see which person on the team is most talented in handling certain activities. Their names were placed in front of that activity. Pretty soon, we had a very simple, organizational chart created for our office.

We have made a habit on a quarterly basis to go back and look at that chart. Any time a new task or new responsibility comes along, we add that in the chart. Then we find the person who can do that task the best, and their name is added to that task. This way all the confusion, all the chaos has been eliminated.

Have you ever heard this phrase, 'finger pointing'? It's when you say:

"No, you did it;"

"No, you're responsible for it;"

"I was supposed to do that;"

"No, I told you to do that ..."

That is gone now, because if there is any confusion, we just go to the chart, and know who is responsible for what. Confusion is eliminated.

This has also brought harmony in the relationship of team members because they don't have anything left to argue about. The chart explains what they are supposed to do. Once in a while, I will go back and revisit it, and if I find any area of weakness – any area that is not getting performed well – I will train that team member who is in charge of that task. This organizational chart works very effectively.

Perhaps you are in a trade or a profession or even at a stage where you are the only one. This will be my recommendation: You still make organizational chart. And what do you do? You write down all the activities that you are performing, take those activities, and divide them into different groups.

Now, of course, in front of each activity is going to be only your name. But you know what you can do? You can create seven other names called Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. That means these activities I'm going to do Monday, these I'm going to do Tuesday, these I'm going to do Thursday.

Once your organization grows, and you hire a second person, you can go back to the same chart and divide the responsibilities, and so on, and so on, and so on. So whether your company is a one-person company or it has 1,000 people, the same system will work. That is the beauty of organization.

Now let's talk about putting some organization in your personal life. If you have a three or four-year-old, we don’t expect them to write on the chart when they don’t even know how to write on that piece of paper. But you can do this – you can look at all the activities that go into maintaining the home. It could be bringing in groceries or doing laundry or taking the garbage out, or doing the repairs or maintenance. Once you have those activities in place, you then create the organizational chart.

Children, no matter what age they are, can contribute more to running the home than we give them credit for. When my daughter was 6 years of age, she was in charge of doing my accounting. She was just learning math, and I showed her how to write checks and how to enter in the checkbook. I don’t think Quicken or computer programs were around at that time, and most of these activities were done manually.

So this is just one example. My son loved cars. He became responsible for washing, cleaning, and polishing the car. So, he felt productive, and we accomplished certain tasks that needed to be done.

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It doesn’t matter what task needs to be done. It doesn’t matter what responsibilities your household requires. Having some system brings the chaos out of your daily life and puts some law and order there, just the way the universe itself works. This is the power of having organization in your life, personal or professional or financial.

Now, let’s go over the exercise portion of teamwork and organization. In a previous session, we covered finding your talents. Write down what they are. Also write down things you don’t like or don’t enjoy doing. They don’t give you any excitement. Then go out to your resources, friends circle, your church activities, or whatever club you belong to and find the people who can fulfill those responsibilities for you.

They don’t have to be working for you full-time. They could be three hours a month. They could be one hour a week. It depends totally on your need.

Once you have matched the talent you’re looking for and the people who are good at providing that talent, this is the first starting stage of making a team. If you need to create your financial team, I highly recommend that you call Loral Langemeier and check her website at: www.liveoutloud.com – she can help you create your financial team.

Now going back to financial life, you will need a good accountant; you need a good lawyer, maybe a financial advisor. Don’t think about how much money you have to spend or invest. That is not important here. Regardless of the dollar amount you have available, you need to get into the habit of creating a team. The sooner you create the team, the sooner you will enjoy the benefit.

The same goes for your personal life. Look to your family members. Look to your friends. Look at your own children who have talents in doing certain things. For example: I never liked taking garbage out on the garbage day. I could hardly wait until my son could walk, and I taught him how to drag the garbage can out there! Now don’t think I’m cruel. I’m just giving you an example of teamwork.

I hated cutting grass. I never liked mowing the lawn. Well, my neighbor across the street likes cutting the lawn. I talked to him one day and he gladly agreed to do it, and for a dirt-cheap price. Sure, when he comes there to cut my lawn, I do give him lemonade or cookies or whatever because he is my neighbor. So, now my lawn looks as good as his, and that solves my problem.

Some people like doing outside work, some don’t. I’m the type of person who likes to stay in a five star hotel, have a nice massage, and be done with it. The idea is – this is how you create teamwork.

Now, let’s go back to the second part of the exercise, and look at what is creating chaos in your life. What area of your life needs the most help? Whatever area it is, once you become aware that you have chaos and recognize it, that acceptance alone is the first stage of organization.

Once you are aware of the chaos, start writing down what is causing the chaos, what is creating this unorganized system. If you feel lazy or you don’t feel like getting more organized, think about the universe. If such a big universe works in a systematic way, why can’t your life by like that? So get off that couch! Get organized! Find a team!

This is Dr. A, and thank you.