Around 20 years ago, while a financial controller for a large Sydney-based corporation, Executive Director of Organised1st Mark Lovekin worked 80 hours a week at a gruelling pace. He did this until one day he experienced something so strange that he gave himself a fright.

A work colleague had asked Mark a simple question: "Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?" Mark looked at his colleague while she waited for his answer…and she waited…and waited. Eventually, he was able to respond: "Yes, coffee please". To process that simple question and "find" the appropriate answer and then articulate it took him one whole minute: 60 full seconds. Mark knew then that he was in trouble. He realised his brain was so overloaded that his ability to process the simplest question had been drastically diminished.

Disorganised by nature, Mark was determined to change the way he was working. He decided he needed a system that would enable him to better manage all his information intake areas - his diary, his "to do" list, his phone messages and calls to be made, his appointments, his thinking and "ideas", his in-tray and his desk. While there were plenty of 'time management' systems available, he couldn't find anything that could adequately help him process and manage all intakes. So Mark devised his own system and began sharing it with colleagues and business associates and, they loved it.

The simple changes he made enabled Mark to become much more efficient and much less stressed in his work and home life. He also found he could reduce his working hours but achieve more. Over the next few years Mark refined his system and continued to share it with others.

Some time later Mark moved into business consulting. One of his clients was St George Bank which had sought his help to resolve escalating customer complaints, high staff turnover and a need to improve revenue. Mark soon realised these were not problems but symptoms. He found that staff felt overloaded and unable to adequately cope with the demands placed upon them, which in turn was affecting customer service, staff churn and revenue. Coincidentally, this was at the start of the computer era where email systems were a new intrusion that created more interruptions and more work.

Mark surprised St George by saying he couldn't fix their problems as such but proposed to "get the staff more efficiently organised". His rationale made sense and the management agreed to try his solution. Mark introduced his personal "being organised" system and while the staff initially were highly resistant to what they saw as yet another intrusion, Mark's persistence paid off. Within three months the symptoms to St George's problems had been reversed: staff turnover had dropped dramatically as had customer complaints; and new business had increased by 70% in just three months.

The management and staff at St George couldn't thank Mark enough - he knew then that he was onto something worth developing further.

Mark set up strategic development meetings with two business associates, Barrister and Solicitor Paul Edgar and Computer Science authority Graham Reid. In 1999, their combined business acumen and foresight resulted in the further development and formalisation of Mark's system and the creation of the delivery vehicle, Organised1st.