get organised at work
We all want to be more organised don’t we? Some people would just like to be a bit more efficient whilst others always feel overwhelmed at work. It makes things run more smoothly and minimizes stress though if we can think ahead. Well here I have 5 of the best things you can do to really get to grips with how to be more organised, and how to be more efficient.
1. Tidy your desk
If you really want to know where to start getting organised – this is the place! If the area around you is messy, with pens everywhere, piles of paper all over the place and not a clear surface in site – likelihood is that your brain will also feel like that – cluttered and a jumble, you could even call it scrambled. The number 1 thing you must do is tidy and organise your desk.
IClear everything off the desk, including emptying out any drawers
Give it a good clean with a damp cloth
Make 3 piles, keep, throw away, belongs elsewhere
Return things that belong elsewhere to their rightful homes, bin the throw away pile and put back the things you want to keep. Make sure to categorize things e.g. stationery together in one drawer and hair bobbles in another! (just ne that sees these as an essential by my desk!?)
Voila! Your brain will feel magically clearer, and you are ready to work!
2. Organise your computer files
Allocate a couple of hours to this- it's important. It's not just that pesky desktop that needs to be tidy - it is your whole filing system. And I don't mean physical filing system I mean where we save our files on our computer.
If you can never find the file you're looking for, or if it takes you a while when you're about to save something to save it somewhere, because you're not sure exactly where to put it, it can really slow you down.
Think about the way you want to organise your digital files. Keep it simple and try not to have too many sub categories. As an example - if you work with customers you could have one file called customers and then a file within that for each customer. Or you could file in a slightly different way whereby you have customer plans, strategy, invoices all separated. Whichever seems most logical for you is the right way to do it.
When you have done this saving your files once you have worked on them will become so much easier because it will be obvious where to put them and similarly it will be obvious where to find them. stop reading this now and go and find a time in your diary when you will do this exercise and block it out now
3. Look ahead weekly
You must take time each week ideally at the end of the week to look ahead to the following week – this will help you to stop being last minute and feeling like a disorganised person. look at each meeting you have and note down if there is any preparation you need to do for that meeting. Next think about any deadlines you have I note them down too. Then hello any gaps in your calendar and block out the time when you will do the relevant preparation all the work to hit those deadlines. This is a surefire way to make sure you hit deadlines and that you don't end up working late into the night when you have left too little time to prepare.
4. Switch off distractions
When you have a specific piece of work to do it's very easy for it to take a long time because you are distracted whilst trying to do it. Here is a sure-fire way to get your work done quickly and to the highest standard.
Put your phone at the other end of the room so you're not tempted to check it, close down e-mail notifications or your e-mail programme, switch off any messaging notifications such as the Teams chat function. If it makes you nervous to be uncontactable you can put a message on your Teams status or as an out of office reply on your email to say that you are working on something and if it is urgent they should call you and leave your mobile phone number.
Set a timer for 40 minutes and start working. It is likely that you will find when you get to 40 minutes you will be so into the work that you are doing that you will want to carry on if it's still not complete. Try it and let me know how you get on!
5. Don’t let other people’s priorities become yours.
It's happened to the best of us somebody messages us is in a really urgent priority has to be done today. Usually this is the kind of thing that could have been planned for but because it hasn't been it's ending up on your desk, a little bit too late. These are the kind of requests that can hijack our carefully planned days and leave us thinking “how can I get everything done?”because extra tasks that we hadn’t bargained for have popped up. If by diverting your attention to focus on the other person’s priority you are going to be further behind, perhaps late even, on one of your own deadlines, you need to think carefully about how you respond.
I've recently written a blog post on how to say no- which you can read here for a few more tips:
But in this situation the best tactic is to try and take a holistic view as to if this priority really is more important than whatever it is you are working on for the business as a whole. If so, then of course take the task on but be sure to manage any other deadlines that are impacted by you focusing on the new task.
Overall it is important to resist being constantly reactive, and try to keep on the front foot using proactivity wherever possible.
Follow me here: My instagram profile for more tips like this – and drop me a message to let me know if you have found any of these tips useful - which one have you tried?
