Forget the 80/20 rule. According to research by Tor Dahl, chairman of the World Confederation of Productivity Science, as much as 92 percent of our work time is wasted.
Here's the positive spin. If you could figure out a way to get people to waste just 84 percent of their time, their productivity and billing would double. See how this works? Now you're 16 percent more efficient. "Streamline" is Price Pritchett's advice in his new booklet, Mindshift: The Employee Handbook for Understanding the Changing World of Work. He asserts that the clutter in our lives and on our desks constantly draws our attention away from the vital tasks.
Here are ten suggestions for making your sales department more productive:
1. Have a two-hour paper purge. Set a timer and see how many pounds of paper salespeople can get rid of. Make it light and fun. Sure, people should come in on Saturday and do this for themselves, but they don't. Making it a group activity helps create a new clutter-free culture.
2. Institute a clean desk policy. At night, all surfaces should be cleared of papers, even if that means the pile goes in a drawer. During the day, three-quarters of the surface of the desk should be visible.
3. Impose the poster rule. No poster can hang more than six months. Start with your own office.
4. Knock off the knickknacks. It's a desk, not a nest. While there's nothing wrong with a personal touch, consider an amendment to your policy manual to limit the number of those touches to two.
5 . Quit copying everybody. Post memos intended for everyone on a central bulletin board. Use "group email" to get information to people.
6. Throw away every back issue of every magazine that's over two months old. Feeling guilty about not reading them only drains energy that could be devoted to having a more productive present.
7. Make it a practice to have at least one empty drawer in your desk, one empty shelf on your bookcase, and one unscheduled hour in your daily planner.
8. Write down your top five functions. These high-leverage tasks are the things you should be planning first. If you're doing something other than one of these five, ask yourself why.
9. Make a list of things you are doing that shouldn't be done. Quit doing them.
10. Brainstorm another list of 10 things that will eliminate clutter and act on them.
Ninety-two percent of work time is wasted. The statistic is startling. Even if your market is different, it's crucial to become uncomfortable with clutter. Your success as a manager depends on it.
Form small groups. Get your salespeople involved in the productivity process. Walk into your next sales meeting and write "eight percent" on a flipchart or a white board. Explain the research to your team. Ask them to come up with a list of things they should be doing more of and things that they should eliminate. People rarely resist their own ideas. Now, go home and clean out your basement. You'll feel better.
This is such a familiar theme... 
