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Posts Tagged ‘Organization’

There’s a popular online retailer whose tagline is “It’s all about the O.” That is very true when it comes to working smarter, not harder. “O” being – Organization. Being organized makes you more efficient and appear more professional, decreases stress, and increases your effectiveness.

Besides just the downside of the benefits listed above, being disorganized also severely impacts your productivity, costs you time and money. Let’s estimate that a bit to put it in real world terms. Experts estimate that the average worker spends an hour a day looking for misplaced items. Say your income is roughly $60,000 per year. That hour adds up to almost $150 per week. Almost $600 per month. And over $7,000 per year.

That’s $7,000 a year flushed. Gone. Buh-bye.

I know, I know, being organized is a PAIN! It takes discipline and follow-through, but how much pain does it cause you to lose $7,000 a year?

What could you have done with that $7,000?

Tips for getting and staying organized

1. Clean the slate. You’ve seen those organizational shows where they pull everything out of the house and make the people go through and sort it, right? To stay organized, you need to get organized.

2. Create Stacks. Once you have that stack of items piled up in front of you that you’ve been putting off dealing with, go through it and put it into 4 stacks:

Trash, Shred, File, Action Needed

The trash part is easy. Throw it away. Be careful not to throw anything away that has personal information, even if it’s partial like credit card numbers, birth date, medical information, etc. You’re better off to shred it. Better safe than sorry. You’ll be surprised at how much of the stuff you can just toss.

Shred – easy, peasy. If you don’t own a shredder, this is one of the best investments you can make. And get a cross cut shredder. The old style strip shredders are pretty useless. It might take some time, but anyone who is patient enough can patch those strips together and have any information you thought was protected.

File – I have an ongoing file stack. I have some of those nifty stackable trays and one of them is specifically for filing. Then every Friday, before I close the office for the day, I file. It usually takes all of 10 minutes and then everything is in its place. If it’s not in the file, it’s in the tray. How easy is that? And 10 minutes is WAY doable…I don’t care who you are.

Action needed – I’ve found that this stack is usually fairly small. Either write them down in a list, or sort them in order of priority and schedule time to deal with them.

3. Make a to-do list. Taking a few minutes to write down the to-do’s of the day will help you to stay on task. You’ll also get a sense of accomplishment by checking items off when they’re complete.

4. Stay on top of it. I know, it may take an extra 2 minutes to sort through the mail as soon as it comes in, but those 2 minutes will save you having to repeat steps 1 and 2 again. Over and over.

5. Use your calendar. If you start using a calendar to schedule your time, you will be surprised to find out how much time you can find. I subscribe to several magazines and have time for reading them slated into my schedule.

There you have it. A few simple things followed consistently and your work world will be a much more organized, productive place, which for me, makes it a happier one, too.

Now…what can I use that $7,000 for?