Having an organized home is great. It reduces stress and helps you function much easier…but what about your small business? Are papers overflowing from shelves and process management lost somewhere in the mix?
Here are five ways to organize your home office or small business that will drastically change the efficiency and production of the company you’ve poured your heart into.
- First and foremost, create a designated inbox for all mail you receive. Whether that’s a basket, wall hanger or box, find a spot to put everything as soon as it comes in.
- Have a garbage bin located near your inbox. Anything that you readily know is trash, throw it away.
- Pick a regular time of day (or a couple times a week) to go through all items in your inbox. It’s important to create a habit.
- Create a filing system for any document that needs to be kept for any period of time.
- Helpful Tip: If any of the paper mail you receive can be changed to online or email invoices, makes the change!
Computer Documents/ Icons
- Choose a calm and concentration-boosting background for your desktop.
- Group ‘like’ icons or documents in one folder on your desktop for easy access.
- Keep all folders and icons to the outer corners of your screen to minimize clutter.
- Helpful Tip: Fences is a great way to group like items on your desktop. You can download this here.
Paper Files
- First, sort through all paper documents and shred or dispose of any item that is no longer necessary. Check online to see how long you should keep important documents.
- Purchase a file cabinet and arrange documents by type in designated folders, keeping the newest information towards the back.
- Anything that can be scanned and kept as a digital copy, take this step! It’s also recommended to have these copies on a google drive just in case there’s a hard drive issue.
Work Space
- Organize everything on your desk the way you like it! This mean computer, phone, pens, etc.
- Keep office supplies that you use every day in an easy to reach location.
- Don’t put too many personal knick knacks on your desk. This will cause clutter and leaves little room for creative space!
- Keep a notebook on your desk to write down and notes or details that you may need to remember.
- Helpful Tip: Mind your ergonomics! Check out more information here.
Time Management
- Buy a planner!
- Know your goals for the week.
- Prioritize what is important or urgent.
- Plan ahead on life events that you know about in advance. For example, if you know there’s a meeting at 3pm, have your presentation ready and any notebook you plan on bringing sitting in an easy to grab spot at least 30 minutes before kickoff.
- Eliminate distractions.
- Delegate things that you’re able to. Rome wasn’t built in a day and in the same way that it takes a village to raise children, it also takes one to run a successful business.
- MAKE TIME FOR YOU! Whether that is exercising, reading a book or just enjoying the sunshine.
But all things should be done decently and in order. 1 Corinthians 14:40