Organizing Fast Facts and Statistics

There are a number of studies and surveys that have been conducted over the years regarding organization. 

Business

• 75-90% of all visits to physicians are stress related.
• It costs $25,000 to fill a four-drawer filing cabinet and $2,100 per year to maintain it.
• The average North American will be interrupted 73 times a day. Studies have shown that people waste as much as 4.3 hours per week searching for papers. This adds to stress and frustration. The cost when multiplied annually is staggering.
• It takes 20-30 minutes to transition into deep, critical and creative thought.  After a worker is interrupted, it gets worse.  Not only do they struggle to get into their creative zone, they lose productivity because they are repeating steps to retrace where they left off.
• The average office worker makes 61 trips per week to the fax machine, copier and printer.
• US Businesses generate over 2 trillion pieces of paper every year.
• The average American will spend one year searching through desk clutter looking for misplaced objects.
• Every day American businesses generate enough paper to circle the earth 20 times!
• There are thirty-seven hours of unfinished work on your desk at any given time.
• The average U.S. executive wastes six weeks per year searching for missing information in messy desks and files. (That translates into one hour per day.)
• Corporations in America spend 3% of their annual revenue on office printing.  Organizations must therefore work for the first eight days of every year to pay for this expense.
• About 25% of workers save things in piles instead of files.
• 70% of white collar time is spent on processing paperwork.
• White collar workers waste an average of 40% of their workday.  Not because they are not smart, but because they were never taught organizing skills to cope with the increasing workloads and demands.
• US businesses spend $360 billion annually turning the information on the documents they receive every day into something they can use to run their business.
• It is 10%-15% easier to access a digital archive than a paper one.
• 96% of businesspeople are frustrated by their companies' information management.
• In 1997 job stress was estimated to cost U.S. industry between 200 and 300 billion dollars annually!

Residential

• 23% of adults say they pay bills late (& thus incur fees) because they loose them, according to Harris Interactive.
• The average American woman spends 55 minutes per day looking for things.
• It costs an average of $10 per square foot to store items in your home.
• Crisis” purchases related to disorganization could cost as much as 15 to 20 percent of your annual budget—buying duplicates of misplaced or broken items, last-minute shopping at premium prices and unnecessary interest, rush, and finance charges on late payments.
• Realtors regard “first impression” improvements such as de-cluttering closets to be one of the smartest ways to speed the sale of a home and fetch a better price, according to the New York State Association of Realtors.
• Cleaning professionals say that getting rid of excess clutter would eliminate 40 percent of the housework in an average home (National Soap and Detergent Association).
• On average, about 80% of a home's clutter is a result of disorganization, not lack of space.

Paper/Information Control

• 80% of papers that are filed are never referenced again. Rent for the floor space, the file cabinets, and filing supplies all cost money.
• According to the Small Business Administration, paperwork has been voted the biggest burden for small businesses. Time spent mishandling paperwork detracts from the company's ability to service customers, increase sales, and improve the bottom line.
• 80-90% of all records in the average organization are paper based.
• Experience continues to show that 30-40% of all recorded information can be immediately deleted from electronic systems or paper systems. Why? Because 30-40% of all recorded information in the average organization are unnecessary duplicate copies of records that are maintained elsewhere within the organization. Another 20-30% of all records can be transferred to an on-site records area for maintaining inactive records or outsourced to a commercial records management center or converted to other media for occasional access.
• "...the paperless office, like artificial intelligence, is one of those 'any day now' phenomena that somehow never seem to actually arrive ... paper consumption has continued to double every four years, and 95% of all information in the US remains on paper, compared with just 1% stored electronically. Paperwork is increasing faster than digital technology can eliminate it." – Bill Gates, Business @ the Speed of Thought
• 680 million pieces of mail are generated in the U.S. every day.
• E-mail is increasing print volumes by 40%.
• Of the total 8 hours wasted per week in paper document management, we spend 1 hour finding documents, 1 hour with difficulty in sharing documents, 1 hour in distribution/storage and .5 hours in archiving and retrieval of documents.
• More than 70% of today's business would fall within three weeks if they suffered a catastrophic loss of paper-based records due to fire or flood.
• It costs $120 in labor to track down a misplaced document or $250 in labor to recreate it.
• The average office has 19 copies of each created document.
• For more paper facts see Imagetag's web site.

General

• According to Laura Nash & Howard Stevenson's book, "Just Enough," 81% of people consider themselves organized, yet 83% say getting MORE organized is among their goals.
• The average person is interrupted once every 8 minutes.
• 78% of adults say they wish they had more time to stop and smell the roses. Women feel more strongly about this than men.
• 60% of Americans feel they do not have enough time to get everything done.
• Americans waste 9 million hours per day searching for misplaced items according to the American Demographics Society.
• Benjamin Franklin expressed in his autobiography it is scientifically proven that crossing items off lists releases endorphins into the body.
• Stress management programs, products, and services totaled $9.4 billion in 1995, with an estimated 22 percent annual growth.
• The Wall Street Journal reported that 59% of all Americans say they are too busy.
• The Wall Street Journal reported that in 2002 UPS and GM implemented clean desk policies.
• The information supply available to use doubles every five years.

Please Note: Unless otherwise stated, all statistical information was obtained from the National Association of Professional Organizers. NAPO continuously collects statistics on organization and clutter control. The following statistics were reported on their web site June 2005.