Step by Step Guide to A More Organized Work Life
A more organized work life can spur productivity and reduce stress. If you're looking for ways to streamline your routine and declutter your workspace, the following step-by-step plan can help.
Step 1: Simplify your workspace. Over time, desks evolve from work areas to storage spaces. If your workspace has accumulated an excess of pens, envelopes, notebooks or other office supplies, banish them to the trash or organize them inside a drawer. By removing everything but the essentials, you will be able to reclaim some much-needed space. Many times, we experience less stress and anxiety when we have less clutter in our visual work area.
Step 2: Reclaim your desktop. Is your computer cluttered with random folders and icons? Take some time to purge these unnecessary items to create a cleaner, more streamlined virtual workspace. You should also weed through your emails and delete anything that doesn't really matter. Lastly, backup critical data, so you won't have to constantly worry about losing irreplaceable information in the event of a catastrophic hardware failure.
Step 3: Automate wherever possible. From virus scans and data backup to online form filling and recurring invoices, it's a good idea to automate anything you can. There are all sorts of ways to automate work functions. That said, you should also look for ways to automate things in your personal life. Whether it's online bill paying or smart technology in the home, your work day will be a lot less stressful if you aren't feeling over-burdened by non-work responsibilities.
Step 4: Digitize documents. Whether you are organizing for tax time, backing up data or simply trying to reduce your paper clutter, it's a good idea to digitize important documents. You can speed up document scanning using apps such as CamScanner or Scanbot, which let you instantly scan receipts, notes or invoices from your mobile device. You can then use the app to sync, manage, share or update each item from virtually any location.
Step 5: Give everything a place. Make sure all of your work essentials have a standard place where they should always be. Avoid creating a junk drawer filled with staplers, hole punchers, rubber bands, coffee mugs and other miscellaneous items. When things have a place, you always know where to find them. They are also less likely to end up on your desk, where they become just another piece of clutter that inhibits your work flow.
Step 6: Adopt the right mindset. While it's easy to get organized when properly motivated, it's not so easy to remain organized when the feeling fades. There's no point in getting organized if you instantly return to the same bad habits that left you disorganized in the first place. When we take one step forward and one step back, we perpetuate a cycle that leaves us feeling frustrated and helpless. Once you get yourself organized, take some time to identify specific habits and patterns that might have contributed to your organizational problems. Once you identify these, focus on developing new daily routines that will keep you organized going forward.
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