An organised office can save you more time than you might realise at first, Imagine all of the time you spend, looking for documents that you misplaced or couldn’t find for a while due to the clutter on your desk. Or even the time you spent looking for a pen that just disappeared into an abyss of mess upon your desk. If you collect that time up I assure you it will be a greater nuisance than organising your workspace once and for all. It doesn’t take a huge amount of effort to maintain your organisation once you’ve sorted your desk, just the initial work to sort files too sensible places.
Step one, the most obvious by far is to remove any scrap paper, or needless documents that are creating a mess on your desk. If the documents are merely unnecessary at the current time but will be important in the future, file them in a sensible place so you know where to find them when they are desired. Remember it’s a privilege to have your own personalised work space, nevertheless that doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be organised. With an organised work space you will be more efficient, cutting time that would otherwise be spend finding the document or equipment that you need.
The other workspace you need to make sure is organised is your computer, holding many of the files you will need, your computer is a work space that you should make sure is easy to navigate and locate documents on. First of all clear your desktop of clutter, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a few easy to find tools or documents on there - just not redundant material you wont use again. Having this clear will allow you to save things there temporarily, such as files you down load but intend on filing properly later on. Once this is done you are half way there, the final step on your computer is to make sure your documents are saved in files that are relevant to them. This will aid you when searching for a document you saved a while back due to the face each document will be saved in the specific folder necessary.
Use excel files or post-it notes too your advantage, it is easy to lose track of what tasks you have completed and others that need to be finished. On excel you can use individual cells to type tasks that need to be done, check them by filling the cell with either a green colour or a red colour. Red for outstanding work and green for work that you have completed. This is a visual way to manage your tasks and keep you moving through them swiftly, avoiding the time consumed by deciding which task to do next.
You can improve your team’s focus on the long-term goal you are trying to achieve in the work place. This might be done by writing your long term goals on a whiteboard that is on display in your office, the reason this might help you’re office progress forward is that it gives you and your staff a goal to work towards over time, it might also instil you’re ethos throughout your staff.
One of the most time consuming aspects of any job is the small admin and secretarial tasks like admin, call handling, replying to emails, booking meeting. Its important to keep on top of all of these tasks otherwise you could find yourself snowed under with a pile of work you can see the end of. If you find these sorts of task are becoming too much to handle on your own it might be worth consider bring in some extra help in the form of an new employee or a virtual assistant like Smart PA. Both ca virtual pa and a new employee can be a great addition to any team and could help free more time for you to get on with the jobs you need to do. When deciding between a virtual secretary and a new employee it’s important to choose which ever one suits your business needs are both have their pros and cons can offer a lot.
Step one, the most obvious by far is to remove any scrap paper, or needless documents that are creating a mess on your desk. If the documents are merely unnecessary at the current time but will be important in the future, file them in a sensible place so you know where to find them when they are desired. Remember it’s a privilege to have your own personalised work space, nevertheless that doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be organised. With an organised work space you will be more efficient, cutting time that would otherwise be spend finding the document or equipment that you need.
The other workspace you need to make sure is organised is your computer, holding many of the files you will need, your computer is a work space that you should make sure is easy to navigate and locate documents on. First of all clear your desktop of clutter, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a few easy to find tools or documents on there - just not redundant material you wont use again. Having this clear will allow you to save things there temporarily, such as files you down load but intend on filing properly later on. Once this is done you are half way there, the final step on your computer is to make sure your documents are saved in files that are relevant to them. This will aid you when searching for a document you saved a while back due to the face each document will be saved in the specific folder necessary.
Use excel files or post-it notes too your advantage, it is easy to lose track of what tasks you have completed and others that need to be finished. On excel you can use individual cells to type tasks that need to be done, check them by filling the cell with either a green colour or a red colour. Red for outstanding work and green for work that you have completed. This is a visual way to manage your tasks and keep you moving through them swiftly, avoiding the time consumed by deciding which task to do next.
You can improve your team’s focus on the long-term goal you are trying to achieve in the work place. This might be done by writing your long term goals on a whiteboard that is on display in your office, the reason this might help you’re office progress forward is that it gives you and your staff a goal to work towards over time, it might also instil you’re ethos throughout your staff.
One of the most time consuming aspects of any job is the small admin and secretarial tasks like admin, call handling, replying to emails, booking meeting. Its important to keep on top of all of these tasks otherwise you could find yourself snowed under with a pile of work you can see the end of. If you find these sorts of task are becoming too much to handle on your own it might be worth consider bring in some extra help in the form of an new employee or a virtual assistant like Smart PA. Both ca virtual pa and a new employee can be a great addition to any team and could help free more time for you to get on with the jobs you need to do. When deciding between a virtual secretary and a new employee it’s important to choose which ever one suits your business needs are both have their pros and cons can offer a lot.