The Cockpit Concept

The Cockpit Concept 

“Everything in the world must have design or the human mind rejects it. But in addition it must have purpose or the human conscience shies away from it.” – John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley

The Cockpit Concept 
The next step in your office reorganization project is to organize your desk surface.  Clear everything off your desk.  Ask yourself, would your computer monitor work better in another location?  Once you have determined the location of the monitor, sit at your desk.  Place the most used supplies and equipment (stapler, tape, pens and pencils, notepads, phone, etc.) within easy reach on the desk surface or within drawers.  This is called the cockpit concept.  Other than these supplies, nothing except your current project should be within the ‘cockpit area’.

Relatively close to the cockpit area you will have five filing systems.

• Inbox 
• Outbox 
• To-do Box 
• To-file Box 

To help keep the clutter down, learn to make fast decisions.  The biggest clutter culprit is procrastination.  Try to take the next action every time you touch a piece of paper.

The Inbox 

1. The inbox is for mail and incoming documents and should be emptied at least every 24 hours.  Go through each item.  You have four choices. Do it – You can do the task, item, or activity. 
2. File it – You can file the item, either in the to-file box, the to-do box, or the outbox.
3. Delegate it – You can delegate the task or activity. 
4. Dump it – Lastly you can throw it away, shred it, or recycle it.  If it is junk mail, add it to a list of organizations to email or call to be removed from their mailing list. 

The Outbox 
Things to be mailed or hand delivered should be placed in the outbox.  Remove items from the outbox when you leave your office and take them to the appropriate locations.

The To-Do Box 
Pending items should be placed in the to-do box.  This box should be reviewed every morning and tasks completed for the day.  You may not be able to accomplish everything within your to-do box each day, but each time you handle something from your to-do box, do something with it.  Make the phone call, add it to your tasks, send the email.

The To-File Box
Put all paperwork which needs to be placed in the files in the filing cabinet in the to-file box.  File everything from the to-file box at the end of each week.

The Current Projects 
File The fifth filing system is the current projects file. It holds the most used files for the day or week.  It can also hold frequently used reference materials.  The current projects file takes the form of a standing file holder located within easy reach on your desk.  This file holder keeps the files vertically, preferably in a stair step fashion.  This makes the files easy to see and use.  The purpose of the current projects file is to eliminate time-consuming filing and searching for files.  In order for it to be useful, only current projects should be placed in this file.