Word count: 260
Read time: 1 min
When I lived in the DC area in the 80’s and 90’s, I lived in an apartment with a neat gal who was a Dental Hygienist. She really cared for people and was always sending them cards. Whether it was for a new baby, a new marriage, a sympathy card or just to say thank you, she sent them. She had a large box of all kinds of cards that she had pre-bought for any occasion that she needed. When she needed a sympathy card, she would dig and dig and spend sometimes an hour looking for the right card to send.
It was a nightmare watching her suffer when she didn’t have to. I offered to help her organize her cards into a nifty filing system so that she could find the sympathy card in seconds not hours, but she refused to let me help her. So for about five years she slopped through her cards 2-3 times a week looking for just the right one to send.
After groaning and moaning about her cards, she finally let me help her. It was simple. In the same box, we set up files-one said baby cards, one said marriage, one said sympathy and so forth. We then sorted and filed the cards.
Folks, this is not hard! Voila — time saved, stress reduced, cards in order, no more swearing, sweating, stewing-just look for the type of card you want and within seconds you can find it!
Jack Welch, past CEO of General Electric, said it best: “Eliminating clutter allows faster decision-making.”