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Staying Organized- Seven Easy Steps

27th March, 2011 - Posted by health news - No Comments

Do you misplace things once in a while? Do you sometimes forget things? Then you are just like the rest of us.

Disorganization is a natural condition of order. Organization takes time.

I like making accounting websites for a living. I don’t want to have to spend my time neatening up my desk every night before I go home any more than you do, but in the end It saves me a lot more time than it uses.

I suppose you could hire an assistant, but you don’t need to. There are a number of basic changes you can make to your work day that will help you keep everything in it’s place.

• Using an inbox and emptying it weekly, at least, will never have you lose a piece of paper again. You may need to use multiple inboxes. You might want one for home and one for work, or have separate boxes for sales, product development, and employee issues.
• In order for everything to have a place, everything NEEDS a place. Make sure you have enough shelf and file space for all your stuff. Not having enough storage makes organization impossible, and but buying office furniture doesn’t usually make it to the top of the priority list. Take some time to buy the stuff you need, and while you’re at it, get a place for temporary storage. Do you have a tray near the front door of your home where you can hang house keys and place outgoing mail? Most of us do. It just makes it easier to gather our stuff before leaving the house. You can do the same thing in your office. If you’re going to have a meeting or important task that day go ahead and pull the stuff you’ll need and put it on this desk!
• Get a calendar and use it. Google has a great calendar app. My calendar allows me post schedules and availability online. This comes in really handy. It also reminds me of upcoming events by email and with on-screen pop-ups. Of course it’s easy to use, and it allows me to shuffle my schedule and change event times by dragging and dropping. It really helps me keep my tasks straight.
• Remember when your mom used to tell you to wash the dishes as you use them? Apply this discipline to your office, too. Don’t let things pile up. Put them away when you’re done and you’ll have a much easier time getting out of the office at the end of the day.
• For everything that you own, designate a place for it. You can label those places, so it’s easier for you to remember. Whenever you use something, you’ll know exactly where they belong because of the labels. Down the road you’ll grow accustomed to it, and soon you won’t need the labels anymore.
• Constantly forgetting and resetting passwords and login information can become a vicious time sink. Keep your password and login information in a single text document, a wiki, some other type of system.
• Organize one aspect of your office at a time. Fix it. Then all you need to do is maintain it as you move on to the next thing.

There are various ways to get and stay organized. The best trick I’ve offered is to put things away as soon as you finish using them.

Guest Poster
Brian O’Connell is the CEO and founder of CPA Site Solutions, one of the United States’ leading edge web businesses dedicated exclusively to accounting websites.