Interesting Organizing Facts

Being unorganized is costing you
money and causing you stress

 Home Organizing    Facts...

★ 10 cities most in need of a deep clean, from the least to most messy:
10. Orlando, F     5. Dallas, TX
9. Denver, CO          4. San Antonio,TX
8. Seattle, WA          3. Charlotte,NC
7. San Diego, CA     2. Austin, TX
6. Atlanta, GA          1. Houston, TX
(Molly Maids, March 2015)

★ 43% of Americans categorize themselves as disorganized.
(Ikea Life at Home Survey,
July 2012)

★ More than 1 out of every 4 Americans remarked that they would like to be better organized. (NAPO)

★ 700,000 to 1.4 million Americans may have compulsive disorder syndrome--difficulty in throwing away anything for fear that they may need the items later.
(Self Storage Association: Obsessive Compulsive Foundation)

★ It takes approximately 30 days to establish a new physical or emotional habit.

★ Unnecessary expenditures related to disorganization (last minute shopping at premium prices, buying duplicates of misplaced items, rush charges, late fees, etc.) can cost as much as 15% to 20% of your annual budget.

STRESS AND CLUTTER
★ "Stressed" spelled backwards is "desserts."

★ 84% of recently stressed-out Americans said they worried that their homes weren't clean or organized enough. (Huffington Post survey)

★ 42% of homeowners experienced more anxiety when their homes were unorganized or cluttered.
(Rubbermaid survey)

SELLING YOUR HOME
★ Real estate agents ranked cleaning and de-cluttering your home as the top low-cost improvement project for a home seller. Average Cost = $402, Benefit = $2024, Return on Investment = 403%. (HomeGain.com Survey 2012)

★ Realtors regard"first impression" improvements such as decluttering your closets to be one of the smartest ways to spruce up your home before putting it on the market. Homes that look uncluttered sell faster and for more money.
(NY State Association of Realtors)

HOME MANAGEMENT
★ Getting rid of excess clutter would eliminate 40 percent of the housework in the average home.
(National Soap &
Detergent Association)

★ Nearly half of homeowners said they wouldn't invite their friends to their home because of        clutter.
(Rubbermaid survey)

★ The rise of big-box stores has fueled
a tendency to stockpile, which
compounds clutter.
(UCLA researchers)

★ 80% of clutter in your home is a result of disorganization, not lack of space.
(The American Cleaning Institute)

★ Being disorganized and having lots of clutter costs families an average of 10-15% of their income. (NAPO)

★ 80% of what we keep we never use. (Agency Sales Magazine)

★ We wear 20% of the clothes we own 80% of the time. The rest hangs there, just in case. (Calgary Herald)

★ The average American throws away 65 pounds of clothing per year. (Huffington Post)

★ There is an estimated 15 Billion in unused gadgets in junk drawers around the world. (ABC News)

Americans spend $1.2 trillion annually on nonessential goods—in other words, items they do not need (The Wall Street Journal).

PAPER MANAGEMENT
★ 80 % of filed paper documents and other information are never looked at again. (Agency Sales Magazine)

★ 23% of adults say they pay bills late (and incur fees) because they lose them. (Harris Interactive)

★ The average American receives 49,060 pieces of mail in their lifetime; 1/3 of it is junk mail. (NAPO)

★ Having bills digitally delivered to you in a single year can save 6 pounds of paper and 23 pounds of wood. If every American household switched to electronic bills and payments, more
than 1.8 million trees would be saved each year.

ORGANIZING PRODUCTS
★ 1 in 11 American households rents a self-storage space, spending over $1,000 a year in rent and contributing to a mufti-billion dollar industry – bigger than the Hollywood film business!

Self-Management Facts...

☀ 40% of adults say that if they had more time they would spend it with family.
(Day Runner Survey)

☀ More than 90% of adults declare an overwhelming sense of "time-poverty" -- part of an epidemic of anxiety and pressure in our society.
(Psychology Today,
Nov/Dec 1993)

☀ 60% of Americans feel they do not have enough time to get everything done.
(Vital Stats)

☀ 65 percent of people describe themselves as “very” or “insanely” busy.
(Day Runner Survey)

☀ 1 hour of planning will save 10 hours of doing.

☀ The average person uses 13 different methods to control and manage their time.

☀ The average person spends an average of 6 minutes looking for their keys in the morning
(Ikea)

☀ Using the correct
organizational tools can improve
time management by 38%.
(Mobile Technology Product)

☀ 10-12 minutes invested in planning your day will save at least 2 hours of wasted time and effort throughout the day.
("Eat the Frog" by Brian Tracy)

☀ The average American spends one year of his or her life or 55 minutes a day looking for lost or
misplaced items.
(US News and World Report)

☀ The top five items men look for in their homes were clean socks, remote control, wedding album, car keys and their driver's license.
(Ikea)

☀ The top five items women look for in their homes were a favorite pair of shoes, child's toy, wallet, lipstick and the remote control.
(Ikea)

☀ Over the course of our lifetime, we will spend a total of 3,680 hours or 153 days searching for misplaced items.The research found we lose up to nine items every day—or 198,743 in a lifetime. Phones, keys, sunglasses, and paperwork top the list.
(The Daily Mail)

Business Organizing Facts...

► Distractions cost businesses $10,790  a year per worker.

► 280 hours per year are lost by workers seeking clarification due to poor communication.

► According to the Institute for Business and Home Safety, an estimated 25% of businesses do not reopen following a major disaster. (SBA.GOV)

DISORGANIZATION
IN THE OFFICE
► Office workers waste an average of 40% of their workday. Not because they aren’t smart, but because they were never taught organizing skills to cope with the increasing workloads and demands. (Wall Street Journal)

► 43% of Americans categorize themselves as disorganized, and 21% have missed vital work deadlines. Nearly half say disorganization causes them to work late at least 2 or times each week.
(Jane Von Bergen, "So many reasons to neaten up...", Boston Globe 3/12/2006 Esselte survey, David Lewis)

PRODUCTIVITY MANAGEMENT
► How does happiness relate to productivity?
--31% higher productivity
--37% higher sales
--Creativity 3 times higher.
(Happiness at Work survey, Nic Marks, nef (new economics foundation, London) 2012)

► Organizations lose around $1,250 per user in annual productivity because of time spent dealing
with spam, $1,800 unnecessary emails from co-workers, $2,100 - $4,100 due to poorly
written communications.
(Tom Pisello, ITBusinessEdge.com, 12/2008)

► Statistics show the average worker loses at least 1 hour of productivity each day due to disorganization!

► The average American worker is interrupted 4-8 times an hour and loses productivity because they’re repeating steps to retrace where they left off. 60% of interruptions come from electronic devices and e-mails while the other 40% come from traditional sources such as phone calls or chats with colleagues.

DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT
► Paperwork has been voted the biggest burden for small businesses.

► Time spent mishandling paperwork detracts from the company’s ability to service customers, increase sales and improve the bottom line.
(Small Business Administration)

► The average worker wastes 2.5 hours a week looking for documents missing in poorly organized electronic files.

► US employees waste more than 2 hours a week finding, sharing, and storing documents.
(Smart Business Magazine)

► In surveying 1000 middle managers of companies in the U.S., 59% miss important information almost every day because it exists within the company but they cannot find it.

► An average organization:
-- Makes 19 copies of each document.
-- Spends $20 in labor to file each document.
-- Spends $120 in labor searching for each   misfiled document.
-- Loses one out of every 20 documents.
-- Spends 25 hours recreating each lost document.
(PriceWaterHouseCoopers)

DESK MANAGEMENT
► A person who works with a "messy" or cluttered desk spends, on average, 1 1/2 hours per day looking for things or being distracted by things or approximately 7 1/2 hours per workweek.

► Employees spend roughly 25% to 35% of their time looking for the information they need to do their jobs. (Document Magazine)

► The average U.S. executive wastes 6 weeks per year searching for missing information in messy desks and files. For an employee earning $60,000, that lost time costs the company a staggering $6,290.
(The Wall Street Journal/
Esselte Study)

► The average desk worker has 36 hours of work on his or her desk and spends 3 hours per week sorting piles trying to find the project to work on next. (Richard Swenson, The Overload Syndrome)

SUPPLY MANAGEMENT
► Buying duplicate or last minute supplies due to disorganization can cost a business up to 20% of annual purchasing budget