Living Chaos Free: News Article

Workers Lose Thousands of Hours Looking for Missing Data

WORK FORCE: Consultant Links Sales With Being Organized

July 13th, 2009 San Diego Business Journal By Ned Randolph

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Len Merson’s firm, ChaosOver, helps workers better manage information.

It seems to happen so effortlessly. The e-mail inbox fills with read messages, while desk trays overflow with old memos. Workers feel too overwhelmed to take on another project.

It’s time to think about finding new ways to manage information.

Len Merson, CEO of ChaosOver, says he can help.

His San Diego firm holds workshops and offers corporate coaching programs to provide techniques that, when implemented over and over, become habits.

They include purging the cubicle, developing file virtual folders, and prioritizing work in real-time so that the pipeline doesn’t get congested.

“Information management translates to health: Keeping people sane and proactive in work, and giving them a renewed sense of pride,” said Merson, who started his program in the 1970s while he was working as a sales and marketing consultant.

“There was an immense correlation between organization and sales, revenue and production,” he said.
He launched his business in Hawaii, and then moved to Los Angeles before relocating to San Diego.
Merson, who has six employees, says his program differs from other time management courses because it’s practical.
“We deal in habit and pattern alteration in information management,” says Merson.” “It makes it a whole new way of life.”

E-Learning Platform Launched

In January, he launched an e-learning platform, which he thinks will exponentially increase his customer base.
And he’s collaborating with local software company Learning Evolution to develop an information management tool for the Apple iPhone and BlackBerry, which would cost around $9.95 a month.

He said his sales were just under $1 million last year.

Clients include EA Sports, Swinerton Builders and Sun Microsystems as well as local companies Pacific Building Group and Marcotte + Hearne Builders.

“It helped us get organized and helped us to help each other be successful in the office by managing (our) work flow a lot better,” said Bill Hearne, CEO of Marcotte + Hearne Builders, whose 13 employees took the program in 2008. “It’s time consuming and a bit pricey, but we made up for expense and time with the time and effort not spent looking for documents and coordinating meetings.”

Merson says stress has increased as the economy has faltered. Add that to information overload from e-mail, voice mail, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and PDA smart phones — and workers feel overwhelmed.

Employees waste 60 to 90 minutes a day looking for information, translating to hundreds, if not thousands, of lost work hours a year, he claims.

The ChaosOver seminar consists of a day-long workshop followed by four hours of personal coaching for each attendee over four months. It costs $2,295 per worker.

Filing Systems

ChaosOver teaches electronic and paper-based filing systems that allow for instant access.

“Our clients will tell you that follow-up is a way of life,” he says. “They can spend more time serving the community and little league, where before they didn’t have the bandwidth. They have more focus and time to produce.”

Hearne says that getting tasks completed clears the clutter and the “banging gong in your head that you’re not done with everything,” he says.

Hearne also converted his wife, who runs the Liam Foundation, which raises money for cystic fibrosis research on behalf of their son, Liam.

“I’m really a disciple of the process for lack of a better term,” he said. “My best tool to measure is seeing the attitude of employees. They seem less burdened and stressed and they’re getting the same or more work done.”