What’s dancing on your computer desktop? Virtual clutter can be just as bad as the stuff kicking around the floor of your office.
Do you habitually leave documents sitting on your desktop so that you can find them easily the next time you want to work with them?It’s not a bad idea – until there are so many files or shortcuts on your desktop that you can’t find any of them. That’s right; just like the top of your physical desk.
Don’t panic, the solution can be relatively simple. Set up folders as hot files on your desktop to house the material you are currently working on just like the hot files on your desk. Keep them specific and time limited. When the project is over or completed, purge the folders and move them off your desktop. By then there will be other files that need to be moved into hot files.
Archive for Office Organizing – Page 4
What’s dancing on your computer desktop? Virtual clutter can be just as bad as the stuff kicking around the floor of your office.
Do you habitually leave documents sitting on your desktop so that you can find them easily the next time you want to work with them? It’s not a bad idea – until there are so many files or shortcuts on your desktop that you can’t find any of them. That’s right; just like the top of your physical desk.
Don’t panic, the solution can be relatively simple. Set up folders as hot files on your desktop to house the material you are currently working on just like the hot files on your desk. Keep them specific and time limited. When the project is over or completed, purge the folders and move them off your desktop. By then there will be other files that need to be moved into hot files.
When was the last time you cleaned out the laptop bag? First of all, are you still using a carrying bag or have you switched to the more ergonomic backpack yet? These are not always feasible for the business environment but they are certainly better for your back.
Clear out those files that you haven’t used since the last project finished – and while you are at it, purge the files before putting them away.
Reduce the number of pens, pencils you carry around. How many do you really need? And what about all the computer attachments? If you carry your computer regularly, do you really need all the bits and pieces that you use once a year? Could some of that be stored in a dust free container in your office and be packed for the overseas trip once a year when you need the electrical converter?
Do your weight lifting at the gym – not getting in and out of your car or the bus.
This is a follow up post from the recent Where is Everything item.
Many of my clients, friends, family and acquaintances struggle with paper. It’s everywhere despite our best attempts to go electronic. Organizing paper is probably the number one frustration of almost all my clients.
One of the paper challenges are receipts coming into the household that many of us keep to maintain our household accounts. Some of us have jars, boxes, baskets or folders to keep these daily deluge of little, bitty, annoying pieces of paper called receipts. If you are checking off your credit card bills to ensure all expenses are your own and legitimate then you have a collection of these receipts.
There are many possible solutions but here is one that most of my clients find helpful. Find an expandable file folder – plastic is best – with 13 divisions. They are readily available in a variety of price points at Staples, Grand and Toy and many other office suppliers. Try the local dollar store. Label the divisions by month and then the 13th for miscellaneous.
Presto. You have a place to put those annoying pieces of paper and you don’t even have to sort them. When the credit card bill comes in, pull out the folder, check of the receipts. Now if, necessary, you keep the receipts, already organized by month. If not – shred.
It’s the end of the first week in February – have you turned over your year end yet?
Are you still mixing 2008 invoices/receipts with the new 2009 items?
Have you collected your 2008 documentation for year end reports and income tax preparation?
Do you have a designated location for your 2009 invoices/receipts i.e. e file/folder, paper file, folder, envelop or even a plastic bin?
Have you opened up a new file/folder for February 2009 so that January 2009 can be easily identified/located/sorted/recorded ___________ (fill in your own blank).
How much does your small business/home-based business pay in bookkeeping fees?
Would a little more organization reduce that for you?
What could you reinvest in your business with the proceeds?
Have you scheduled your semi-annual clear out day yet? When was the last one?
Book a day or half day, order the pizza and insist that your staff commit to be present for the clear out. This is a very effective tool to ensure your offices do not become a cluttered, unprofessional place that causes you to cringe when clients come knocking!
Here’s a tip from Julie Morgenstern’s book Never Check Email in the Morning.
Avoid sending FYI’s. They clog your inbox and everyone else’s and are a tremendous time drain with little reward. Never send an FYI without telling the reader at the beginning of the message why you think it will be of interest to him/her. For example, send and FYA or For your Awareness to keep you boss on the inside track just in case.
Inbox a little heavy these days. Like most people you have probably read the important messages, left the rest and moved on with your day. Result: your inbox has several hundred or more messages patiently awaiting your attention. “It will never happen“, you moan. “I will never have time to figure out what to do with them all“. Probably not. Try this instead.
Reorder you Inbox, or whichever folder you’ve decided to attack, by some other method than the usual one. If you order it by date, switch to by sender. Try subject. Try size. It doesn’t matter as long as it is different than your day to day sort.
Start anywhere in your box with your finger over the DELETE key. Notice how the 30 messages from your boss relating to last year’s budget are no longer relevant. How about the 14 messages relating to the Christmas party. And there are the 23 messages about the add space you were considering but never bought. Keep going, you are doing great.
Evenutally all messages that you keep for content need to be filed. Elsewhere I have talked about matching up your e-files to your paper files to make the filing process easier. But for the numerous messages that just collect because we never get around to clearing them out, a Friday Delete Diet can be a wonderful thing. Very lightening before the weekend.
Q “Now that you have seen my disorganization and mess, tell me, are there other people that are disorganized like me? Do their colleagues know?”
A Yes. Usually.
It often takes a lot of courage for a seriously disorganized professional, manager or executive, to let a professional organizer into their office. Many of my residential clients have not had anyone into their home for a very long time. They are too ashamed. Their embarrassment and concern that they will be chastised by friends and family ensure that those friends and family will never be invited over. Their embarrassment is expressed in a desire to know they are not the worst or most disorganized people I have ever worked with. In the business environment, executives, often the highest producers, are running scared that the rest of the office, especially their boss, will find them out.
The reality is that there are many business executives teetering on the edge of collapse because their business world is so disorganized. There are a lot of people in this world with a lot of stuff they a) don’t need b) don’t use c) don’t have room for and d) don’t know how to manage or part with and e) can’t manager their time. The impact on their lives is no different than the impact on the disorganization in the life of the clients that express their frustration and embarrassment in the form of today’s question.
If there weren’t lots of disorganized people in Canada, the country would not support the growing roster of industry professionals such as the members of Professional Organizers in Canada , now with over 600 members, or its affiliate, the National Association of Professional Organizers in the United States.
More important, however, is how each individual or family, struggling with disorganization, gets a grip on their lives so that they too can achieve their business or personal objectives without the emotional and mental stress of always covering up for their disorganization. So if you are wondering if anyone else in the world suffers from disorganization like you do, the answer is yes. Lots of people. Does the rest of the office know? Yes. The symptoms of your disorganization or visible to everyone. Now what will you do to manage it?
How are those files? Full of material from 10 years ago. If you haven’t already, now is a great ime to revisit the contents and get rid of anything that is a) not relevant, b) not legally required, c) not accurate.
Remember, not all legally required material has to be kept in your current, day to day files. In fact, material that is several years old and retained purely for legal reasons may be better suited in a long term storage area that is access seldom if ever.
When your done the paper files, start on the e-files.
