“I can be a bastard; I can be a son of a bitch. I just stand there and say, ‘Are you going to keep this or throw it out?’” says Jeffrey Mayer. For a thousand bucks he’ll stand at your work space–be it lavish or humble–and hand you papers, letters, memos, piece by piece: he’ll go through all the clutter on your desk, and sadistically demand to know exactly what you’re going to do with it.
“I was very small as a kid,” he says. (He grew up in Highland Park and is now regular-sized.) “I had a lot of limitations. So I became good at creative thinking. I wondered ‘What if something were done this way?’ Then my mother used to say ‘When you get work done–your homework, your chores–you can go out and play’ and I took her seriously. I’ve always looked for ways to improve my efficiency.”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Now he’s on a national press tour, looking neat as a pin and being punctual to boot.
“In effect, you’ve thrown everything in here away, except your repository is a room in your home versus a Dumpster.
When people know these kinds of things, says Mayer, maintain a clean desk and use files properly, they have more time to ponder business problems. “They’re productive–not just busy–so they’re apt to get raises, bonuses, promotions…”
“Well, if you had every program you ever got and they were all in the same place, keeping them might make sense,” says Mayer, relenting. “But nothing does you any good if you haven’t got an organized system.”
