After New Year's, it's time to clean up your act

The party's over, another new year rung in. As you take bleary-eyed steps to the television to turn on the parades and football games, you may faintly recall last night, when you swore this year, you'd do things differently.

Have you looked at your desk lately?

Luckily, National Clean Off Your Desk Day is just around the corner. As Jan. 13 approaches, corporate organizers throughout the country will be dispensing advice on how to bring order to the chaos of paper and who-knows-what that inhabit most desks.

Jackie Allen has made a career out of cleaning up other people's messes. A Las Vegas-based professional organizer, she works with people from doctors to construction workers to neaten their messy workplaces. More than 100 clients have cleaned up their acts with her help in her four years since she started Organized Solutions.

She will speak at two national conventions on time management after the new year: on Feb. 3 at the Golden Nugget hotel-casino, and Feb. 4 at Caesars Palace.

Clean Off Your Desk Day, she says, comes at just the right time. "It's a good time to start, because you have a brand-new, fresh page. You have a minute to look back in the year and see what you did, and in January, look at which way to go."

That's the whole reason for getting organized, she says: to help you meet your own goals.

"People need to realize that clutter is stressful and cleaning up gives you better control, which will help you earn more money because you are more focused," she says. "It is the benefit to clients when they make a decision to get organized."

During her consultations, Allen says, she has dealt with many people who are unable to keep their office space clear of unneeded materials. To that plight, she answers with suggestions.

"If you aren't using the information, you need to find another site for it," she says. "During my visits, we work through the drawers, making sure the most current information is in the drawers. On top of the desk, you want to have a good work area. Good organization brings a good foundation."

But Allen doesn't stop with the desk. She works on business organization as well. She is helping one client, Century 21 Premium Quality, review its systems for tracking clients, working with escrow files, detailing properties in closing and for sale, to find out how best to run the system.

That includes updating forms consistently and putting the information in the computers so it will be more manageable.

"It's kind of like a safety net for agents," said Mitch Schwartz, broker and owner of Century 21. "Lots of time there may be requirements for certain things that need to be done in the future. Agents often will get busy and forget this, yet it still needs to be done. Now, a process is being developed so an annotated system is in place to make sure it's there."

So what makes so many unorganized?

"Sometimes people are just chronically disorganized," she says. "They don't realize that it's a much longer process, on an ongoing basis."

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