Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 468, Organizing Your Office.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 468.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
You can go there to download a learning guide for this episode, which will help you improve your English even faster and also make you a little better looking.
This episode is a story about organizing your office.
If you are a messy person, a person who has things in a disorganized way, this will be a good episode for you.
You'll learn some vocabulary about organizing yourself.
Let's get started.
Get the office organized by Friday.
No excuses.
What choice did I have?
I've always been a pack rat.
I hate to throw anything out, but I was determined to turn over a new leaf.
It's true I've worked in the same office for four years and have accumulated a lot of paper.
But if I put my mind to it, I'm sure I could get rid of all of the clutter.
There are piles of paper and files all over my desk, and sorting them out won't be easy.
All I need to do, though, is to purge my filing cabinets of old files to make room for new ones.
I also need to triage the papers on my desk, on the floor, and in my overflowing inbox.
Then I only need to make new files and label them.
Finally, I'll only keep those things on my desk that are essential and get rid of anything that isn't.
That's a pretty good plan, don't you think?
I've already made a to-do list.
Now all I need to do is start on those tasks.
My story begins by saying I have a very disorganized office.
Something that is disorganized is something that is not organized.
When you don't know where everything is that you own, things are very messy.
I say that my coworkers have been making jokes about my office for a long time and my boss finally cracked down on me.
To crack down on someone is a phrasal expression meaning to be very strict, to make someone follow every single rule.
To crack down means to suddenly enforce a law that perhaps was not enforced before.
When the police crack down on protesters, they may be violent with them in order to get them to stop arresting them, and so forth.
It can be both a noun and a verb.
A crackdown could be a noun.
To crack down is the verb, of course.
In this case my boss cracked down on me.
He made me follow the rules.
He told me, get the office organized by Friday.
No excuses, meaning I will not accept any excuses, any reasons why your office is not organized.
I say, what choice did I have?
What else could I do?
I then say that I've always been a pack rat.
The expression pack P-A-C-K, rat R-A-T refers to someone who saves everything, who never throws things away, even when those things are not useful anymore.
I hate to throw anything out, I say, but I was determined to turn over a new leaf.
I was determined, I had decided to turn over a new leaf.
To turn over a new leaf.
L-E-A-F means to have a new beginning, to change your habits and do something in a.
I also say it's true that I've worked in the same office for four years and have accumulated a lot of paper.
To accumulate means to increase the quantity of something over a period of time, usually in a specific place.
To add more of something in a given place.
If you say, I've accumulated a lot of old newspapers on my dining room table, they have increased.
There are more and more of them.
I need to do something about them, such as throw them out.
I say that if I put my mind to it I'm sure I could get rid of all of the clutter, that To put your mind to something is an expression that means to commit to something, to decide that you are going to do it.
No excuses, even if it's difficult.
Clutter, C-L-U-T-T-E-R, is a mess. many things that are not where they should be.
Many of us have clutter in our closets.
They are full of things that are not very well organized, things that often don't belong there.
I say that there are piles of paper and files all over my desk.
A pile of something is a group of many objects one on top of the other.
You could have a pile of papers, many papers on top of each other.
You could have a pile of books, one book on top of another.
Files are holders for a group of papers, usually about a particular topic or a particular organization or person customer, for example.
We all in an office have files, places where we keep papers about a similar topic together.
I say that there are piles of paper and files all over my desk, and sorting them out won't be easy.
You can also just say to sort.
To sort usually means putting things in order, in the proper sequence.
To sort things out however, has a little more general meaning meaning to organize things, to clarify, to make a situation easier to understand or to resolve differences among people about something.
Here it just means to organize these piles of paper and files.
I say all I need to do is to purge my filing cabinets of old files.
To purge, P-U-R-G-E, means to get rid of something, to throw something away, to remove something.
I'm going to purge my filing cabinets A cabinet here is a piece of furniture.
A filing cabinet usually is made of metal or wood and has large drawers where you put the individual files.
I have filing cabinets of old files.
If I purge them, if I get rid of some of them, I'll be able to make room for new ones.
To make room for something means to make space available for something, to move something out so that you can put something else in there.
I say I also need to triage the papers on my desk.
To triage T-R-I-A-G-E means to decide which is the most important thing what you have to do right now, what you have to do later, and so forth.
Doctors if they are in a medical emergency at a hospital and they have dozens of people coming, lots of patients with injuries after an accident, for example, they may have to perform a triage.
They have to triage, separate the patients that are most sick from those that can wait a little.
In this case, I'm triaging the papers.
I'm sorting them to get the most important ones first.
I also have an overflowing inbox.
An inbox can be part of your email program where you first see your messages.
An inbox can also be a small box where you put papers that you need to work on.
If something is overflowing, we mean that there's too much of it, so that the container, in this case the box is too small, because you have so many papers and files.
It's overflowing.
Then I say I only need to make new files and label them.
To label L-A-B-E-L means to put a small piece of paper with a written description onto an object so that you know what that object is.
To label your files means to write on the top of the file what is inside of this file, so you can find it easily.
Label has a couple of different meanings in English however, so take a look at that learning guide for some additional explanations.
I say that finally, I'll only keep those things on my desk that are essential and get rid of anything that isn't.
Essential means very important, the most important, critical.
I'm going to only keep the most important things, the essential things, and get rid of anything that isn't essential.
That's a pretty good plan, don't you think?
I ask.
I've already made a to-do list.
A to-do list is a piece of paper where you write down all of the things that you have to do.
I say that all I need now is to start on those tasks.
A task is something that you have to do.
It's an action.
It's an activity.
You can't just write down a list of your tasks.
You actually have to do them.
Now let's listen to the story this time at a normal speed.
I have a very disorganized office.
My co-workers have been making jokes about my office for a long time and my boss finally cracked down on me.
He told me, What choice did I have?
I've always been a pack rat.
I hate to throw anything out, but I was determined to turn over a new leaf.
It's true I've worked in the same office for four years and have accumulated a lot of paper, but if I put my mind to it, I'm sure I could get rid of all of the clutter.
There are piles of paper and files all over my desk, and sorting them out won't be easy.
All I need to do, though, is to purge my filing cabinets of old files to make room for new ones.
I also need to triage the papers on my desk, on the floor, and in my overflowing inbox.
Then, I only need to make new files and label them.
Finally, I'll only keep those things on my desk that are essential and get rid of anything that isn't.
That's a pretty good plan, don't you think?
I've already made a to-do list.
Now all I need to do is start on those tasks.
Our script for this episode was written by someone with no clutter on her desk, Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2009 by the Center for Educational Development.
