Being Organized Increases Productivity
Member Feature : by Erika Coetzee of The Office Cog.
Poor organizational skills often lead to feelings of anxiety, stress and overwhelm causing mental exhaustion. Being disorganized and without structure reduces focus and energy – something that business owners can ill afford. It will eventually cost you time, money and possibly customers.
The greatest benefit of being organized is the significant increase in productivity. Some of the reasons for that are:
- It saves you time looking for things.
- It gives you more time to work on those really important and significant tasks.
- Information and documents are at your fingertips and easily available.
- It reduces your stress levels.
- Time management and meeting deadlines are more attainable.
Here are 5 organizing tips for your office to increase your productivity:
- Clear It!
It seems pretty obvious, but often our desks become a storage space of things we would like to look at at a later stage. But will you really? Get rid of the things you do not need. Not only does it free up workspace, it de-clutters your mind.
- Condense Filing
Keep only paper documents that you really need. File it by category in folders inside a filing cabinet. Save space in your filing cabinet by keeping documents, information and photos in digital form on your computer. Even better, store it on the cloud. That way you can access it from anywhere.
- Block Your Time
Time blocking is a wonderful tool to effectively manage your time by scheduling every moment of your day in advance and setting aside specific blocks of time for certain tasks and assignments. Block time for similar tasks for the week or day and do them all at once i.e. emails first thing in the morning, meetings around mid-morning and sales in the afternoon.
- Plan Your Time
Increase overall productivity by booking your time on a planner i.e. calendar, diary. To alleviate any unnecessary pressure, ensure that you include exercise, lunch and travel times. Use colour codes to easily differentiate between clients of appointments, for example meetings in orange, training in blue and family time in green.
- Hire A Virtual Assistant
One of the best ways to organise your life is to hire a Virtual Assistant. A Virtual Assistant may be able to identify inefficiencies and simplify processes to help your business run smoother and increase productivity. It will free you up to get more meaningful work done.
Implementing small organizing changes into your business will have a huge impact on your productivity. Staying organized will help you get more done in a shorter amount of time and give you more time to do the tasks that are important to you and your business.
For more information about Erika Coetzee and how The Office Cog can assist your business, please do visit our members page.