In this presentation, Randy Dean, a time‑management and technology specialist at MSU HRD, shares practical strategies for decluttering and organizing both physical office spaces and digital inboxes. He introduces three core principles: (1) the 3‑minute one‑touch rule, adapted from David Allen’s Getting Things Done, which urges handling new items only once—either processing them immediately if they take under three minutes or adding them to a task list for later; (2) the “proximity equals productivity” concept, which recommends keeping frequently used items and equipment within arm’s reach to reduce retrieval time; and (3) making filing easy by maintaining readily available supplies, regularly cleaning storage, and using scanning to convert paper to digital files. Dean concludes with a bonus “Dumpster Day” idea—a dedicated office‑wide cleanup event that, after implementation at Michigan State University, led to noticeable productivity gains. Throughout, he emphasizes actionable habits, simple tools, and the measurable impact of organized work environments.
Chapters
Hi everybody, I'm Randy Dean, totally obsessed time management and technology guy. I lead lots of programs here for MSU HRD, and today they wanted me to give you a few tips on how to spring clean that office. Let me start out with the first tip that I like to share with people, which is the tip that I've been using for years and years to help reduce clutter. Not just physical paper clutter, but also electronic clutter too. It's called the 3-minute one-touch rule. I learned this from one of the masters in the field, a guy named David Allen, who wrote the book Getting Things Done. And basically the way it works is it helps you understand how to handle every new piece of information that comes in, be that electronic, like an email, and/or paper, and even voicemail. And here's how it works. One part of it's called the One Touch Rule, and here's what that says: anything new that you get, you look at one time and one time only. And the very first time you look at it, you You make a decision what you're going to do with it. You make a decision the very first time. And so that flies in the face of modern email usage statistics. The average professional email user reads each and every email they get on average between 3 and 7 times before they either take the action inside the email or get it added to a task list. And what I want you to do is change that dynamic by only looking at new things once, make a decision the first time, and then the very first time you look at it, you You decide what needs to be done. Now there's this little wrinkle to it called the 3-minute part, and here's what that wrinkle is, and this is something I learned from that David Allen guy. Basically what that says is anything that you get that's new that takes you less than a couple minutes to handle, do those right now. So if you get something new that comes in, a new document, a new email, a new voicemail, the quick little ones that take you a couple minutes or less, you handle them right away. That way you don't need to handle them a second time. And what that means is that's gonna save you time over time not looking at the same things again and again and again. So get in the habit of dealing with the quick stuff right away. Now the stuff that takes longer gets added to your task list, be that on a sticky note, be that on your smartphone or device, be that on a big sheet of paper, be that in something like your Outlook task list. Turn that item into a task on your task list if it's gonna take you more than a couple minutes. Now once you have this item, the paper, the document, the email, the voicemail, either done or added to your task list, do you need it sitting on your desk or on your computer screen anymore? Obviously not. You have two options: file it or discard it. Now in email, that means delete. In— on your desk, that might mean file into a paper file, that might mean throw into the trash, that might mean shred, that might mean recycle. And so you'll have to look at each of these options for the new things that come in. But once you're done with it, either put it away or get rid of it. And that's a good option. Now some people say, "Well Randy, what if I don't have a good place to put it?" Simple answer: make one. If you need an electronic folder for your email, put that email into that electronic folder, but get it out of your inbox. And if you need a physical hard copy folder for that document on your desk, make the physical hardcopy folder. But now I'm gonna throw something at you. In this day and age, do you really need it in paper? Could you scan it and turn it into another electronic file, which thus greatly reduces the amount of paper in your office completely and totally? So that's the 3-minute, one-touch rule. Now here's a second rule that I want for you. It's called proximity equals productivity. And what that means is this: when you go into your workstation in your office every single day, I want you to look very closely at how you have things laid out, and I want you to ask this simple question: Is the stuff that I need the most or use the most closest to me? And so what that means is if you need something and you have something, you have to get it close to you so that you can use them more frequently and save time when you retrieve them. So if you've got student files or vendor files or employee files or project files and you're using them all the time throughout the day, get them close. Do you have certain materials that you need? Papers, pencils, staplers, whatever it is, close. Do you have a copy machine within relatively close proximity, a printer in relatively close proximity? I know some of these things you have some limitations on, but I always ask this question: I don't care what you can't do, what can you do to make your workstation designed and organized more efficiently? So that's step number 2, proximity equals productivity. Third thing is this: make it easy to file. A lot of people stack stuff up on their desks, for one simple reason: they're out of file cabinet space. Well, there's a simp— there's two simple solutions to that. One, regularly clean up and update your file boxes. Couple times a year, clean out stuff you no longer need. Second thing is this: if you have stuff and they're full because you need that stuff, get more file boxes. It's not that hard a thing to do. Get yourself space. See, and then here's the other thing. Make it easy also. Keep a small standing inventory of empty manila folders, empty hanging folders, markers, and labels right there at your desk. Don't make it a chore to walk all the way down the hall to the supply closet to get something to make a folder. If you need to make a folder, have the stuff you need right there. And once again, don't forget the scanning option. That's my 3 tips, but now here's one little bonus tip, and something I want you to consider. Especially now that we're approaching the end of a semester here. Something we did in my office when I used to work at Michigan State University called Dumpster Day. And we gave everybody in the office permission to take a whole day in the office just to clean up, organize, and get rid of stuff. We brought in, we brought in big rolling dumpsters from Physical Plant, shred bins from Physical Plant, and we gave everybody permission to go in their office, get rid of the stuff they no longer needed, shred and recycle the stuff that needed to be shredded and recycled, and get their offices organized. And after we did that, productivity jumped. So I want you to strongly consider a Dumpster Day for your unit, your department, your team, because you will see productivity jump and people suddenly start feeling and looking much more organized and in control. That's my 3 tips plus the bonus tip for you. Thanks a lot.
