You don’t need complicated systems for getting organized at work. You can easily get yourself organized with the tools you have available to you right now. It just takes some time and planning.
Plan Your Day
Take 10 to 15 minutes every night before you go home or every morning when you get into the office to organize your day. Write down the tasks that need to get accomplished that day and prioritize them by order of importance. Schedule this time as a meeting so that you do not get interrupted or distracted. Doing this daily helps to keep you focused on accomplishing the most important tasks for the day.
Minimize Distractions
Part of getting organized at work is making yourself more productive. If you constantly have that little email message icon popping up in the corner of your computer screen every few minutes, you are bound to be distracted constantly and get less work done. Try disabling that icon for a day and see if you are more productive. This way you can check your email when you are done with a project rather than being interrupted 10 times while you are working on it.
If you are in an area where there is a lot of traffic or conversations, find a way to tune them out. A white noise machine or putting in headphones can help keep you focused and drown out the background noises. If you are still having a hard time concentrating, try noise-canceling headphones. Be sure to pick music that will not distract you. Instrumentals are typically a better choice than music with lyrics.
Create an Effective Filing System
If most of your work is computer-based, create a filing system on your computer or your folder on the network. Separate documents by categories. For example, let’s say that you are in charge of preparing documents for meetings that your company has. Create a separate folder for each type of meeting (e.g. Sales Meetings, Marketing Meetings, Executive Meetings).
Let’s say that each meeting is held monthly and that you have to create the meeting agenda and minutes for each one. Come up with a standardized naming convention so that you know exactly which document is for each meeting. For example, minutes for a November sales meeting could be called NovSalesMeetingMinutes and the agenda could be called NovSalesMeetingAgenda. This way you know exactly where the documents are and what each one is.
When you put time into getting organized at work, you will likely be more productive and hopefully less stressed out. Being able to find things when you need them and knowing what you need to accomplish can go a long way to getting you organized and on track.
Juliana Montgomery - Juliana Montgomery has over 15 years of experience writing.
