Start The New Year Organized To Boost Productivity In Your Business

Did you make a New Year’s resolution for your business this year? If so, you probably set a goal to get more organized, whether it’s your home office space or your filing system. I love to organize things! I feel so much more productive when my office is not cluttered and all of my documents are neatly stored away where they belong.?

It’s a proven fact that clutter decreases productivity and can negatively affect your life in other areas as well. A cluttered desk and office can cause increased stress and impact your mood negatively. It’s also a distraction when you need to focus on work, but all you can think about is how messy your office is. It can be the perfect storm when you are tempted to procrastinate on your work, and suddenly you HAVE to clean your office now! To avoid this, it’s best to set aside time and put it on your calendar to clean and organize your office space. You can even set aside a few minutes daily to maintain that organization and keep your space looking spiffy!

Organize Your Office Space

While your office space is not the only place where we can benefit from organization, it’s a great place to start. If your office could use some decluttering, here are some tips to help.

• Free up desk space. If you need more storage but don’t like to use your desktop to store your things, you can find some inexpensive baskets that fit under your desktop or under tables and shelves in your office. You can also free up desk space by moving items to empty wall space. Set up wall bins to hold mail and other documents you need to keep visible.?
• Organize desk drawers. If your desk has drawers, utilize them in a way that makes sense. Use dividers or those cute office supply drawer organizers for your small items like sticky note pads, paper clips, pens, and markers.?
• Do a purge. Empty, shred, and throw away anything you don’t need or don’t use anymore. If it’s been sitting for six months untouched or long enough to collect dust, you probably don’t need it.?
• Organize any paper piles and filing cabinets. Most of us are primarily paperless now, with online document storage readily available. If you still have a need for paper documents, nothing is more cluttered than a desk with paper piles. Go through your papers and store them out of sight. A filing cabinet or even desktop file organizers are a great way to store documents and papers in an organized place where you can easily find them when you need them.
• Label everything. I love a good labeling system. Slap labels on anything that will help you quickly find what you are looking for. Don’t just stop at storage bins and filing cabinets. Stick labels on your computer cables and other wires and then neatly tuck them as far out of sight toward the back or side of your desk as you can.??

Organize Your Digital Documents And Files

You probably have much more items stored digitally in your computer and devices than you realize. Grab a big mug of coffee and dive into your digital workspaces.

• Do a digital purge. Purge your computer desktop of any unused apps, photos, and documents. Save anything you need in folders. Keeping your computer desktop and digital device home page clean and clutter-free reduces stress as well. Besides, if you get rid of that clutter, you will be able to see the beautiful background photo you set!
• Revamp your digital filing systems. Do you use cloud-based storage for your digital documents? You should clean out your Google Drive and Dropbox as well. Delete items you don’t need. Designate folders within your cloud service and place your documents within their folders.
• Organize your inbox. Email chaos can lead to disaster! If you have hundreds or even thousands of emails in your inbox, then we need to chat! I can help you to organize your inbox and detox your inbox to achieve inbox zero. You can set up filters and rules within Gmail that will easily sort all of your incoming emails. Never waste time searching your inbox for important emails or looking at spam and junk mail again.?

Take each step one at a time to avoid feeling overwhelmed. You don’t have to do it all in one day. However, once you have purged and organized your office and digital workspaces, you will need to do a little bit of work each day to keep it organized. Don’t forget to block off time on your calendar to work on your daily clean-up.

What is your biggest goal for organization and productivity in your business?