Hit By a Bus

You unexpectedly can’t be at work. You have a family emergency, you have a sick kid, you got your child’s stomach bug at 2 am, your water broke early or you got hit by a bus. In any of these scenarios, you just can’t be at work for a period of time. You thought you would be there for that meeting, you thought you had time to finish that last project, but no can do. You are out.

The first thing people do when you are suddenly gone and unavailable is figure out where you left off. What needs to get done and how to get that done. And, you are probably stressed out making sure things are ok when you are gone, but you need to focus on what is keeping you away. Imagine if you didn’t have to worry because everything was ready for someone to help. Everything was in decent order. Everything was easy to find and figure out. Everything was that organized.

Being organized is one of the keys to easy success. It is near impossible to get things done efficiently when you are sifting through piles of papers or clicking through 100 files to find that one document. It is so hard to complete a presentation when you need that data you just can’t find in the mess of spreadsheets you have been working on. And never mind that inbox with 1500 emails.

While you could have one of these quirks and still be running the world with ease, it is hard to argue that being organized makes work easier.

There is not one organization system that works for everyone. You do what works for you. It might be that you know the white laundry basket always has the clean towels that aren’t folded, or that you keep all of your financial documents in the folder called “almost done.” Whatever it is, keep it going and keep it easy. But, doing a few things to make it a little better can help.

Here are some thoughts on how to make your organization work better for you in case you get hit by a bus.

Create an organization system on your computer. We all keep most of our files, communications, presentations and “paperwork” on our computers. Organize them. Don’t have a desktop filled with random Excel spreadsheets and photos or a shared drive with hundreds of miscellaneous files.

Organize your files by logical categories that would be understandable for someone helping you.

Keep your desk approachable. We all have papers. Notes from calls, lists of things we need to do, printouts, mail or whatever it is. Don’t let your desk become a burial ground for anything that lands on it. If your boss walks in to meet with you, you don’t want to have to move the crusty coffee cup and scrape up old papers to give them a few inches to set down their tablet. If you are suddenly out of the office, and someone goes into it to get something, you want it to be reasonably presentable. Get some desk organizers, make sensible piles and throw things away.

Give things a home on your desk or toss them.

Make your work straightforward to follow. Write up a project list, process check lists or some type of navigational document that guides someone for the type of work you do. If you have a job that involves many steps in order to complete the task accurately, make a list of those steps. If you have 5 clients and 25 different projects going on at one time for them, make a list of those and detail it. Nothing will be entirely thorough, but give at least enough to keep it going without a massive struggle in the event someone has to step in.

Don’t make it hard for someone to understand the basics of what is happening with your work.

Get rid of things. Delete emails, shred old notes, throw away that stale bag of crackers and take out the trash. Purging is good for the soul, but regularly tossing things you don’t need is even more satisfying because its far less overwhelming. If you have files you like to keep for a certain number of years, create a file for historical documents.

Get comfortable getting rid of things.

Don’t operate with a really cluttered inbox. Your tech team may implement an auto delete function after so much time to avoid exceeding data storage limits. You may need to find an email and you have done so much work on that topic; therefore you have 300 emails coming up in that search. None of that helps you. Make files in your email and save copies of the emails you need to keep in your system somewhere else.

Don’t let your inbox become a scrolling book of 3 years of work.

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All of this can really help you, but having an organized life outside of work can help you even more. However, that’s for another day. Let’s not get carried away in this Type A world.

If you are a Type F and a disorganized mess, tackle one thing at a time. Doing it all at once can cause an avalanche.

If you think this is all just uptight advice and you can continue your success easily with 2000 emails, piles of reports on your desk and you always know where you are with things, that’s understandable. We all function differently.

Just don’t get hit by a bus.

https://www.bridgecareeradvisory.com/bridging-ideas