If you think you may have a disorganised business but aren’t sure then here are ten ways you can tell:

  1. Paperwork – You often find it difficult to find things, paperwork, files or even your desk!
  2. Fighting Fires – You seem to be endlessly fighting fires or resolving issues rather than moving the business forward.
  3. Lack of planning – You rarely if ever do any planning for the future of your business.
  4. No Vision – You haven’t thought about, written out or, let alone, shared with your staff your vision for the business.
  5. No Systems – You have no documented systems and procedures in place.
  6. No Management Accounts – You rely on the accountants year end accounts for your financial data.
  7. Missing Deadlines – You miss deadlines more often than not.
  8. Always Late – You are always late for appointments and sometimes fail to act on things agreed in meetings.
  9. No Time – There never seems to be enough time in the day to get done what needs to be done.
  10. Working too much – You carry your work home with you each evening in bags just to keep up.

This isn’t an exhaustive list but I have seen these things in many businesses and they are some of the symptoms of a disorganised business and, of course, in an organised business the opposite is true.

By the way if the last one seems a bit random I have at least four clients who have big bags that follow them from the office to home each evening and weekends and then back again. Often these never get touched but they feel the need to carry the bags to ensure work is kept up to date.