4 More Ways to Get Organized That You Might Not Have Thought Of
By Carolyn Foy Evans, Staples® Contributing Writer
Published January 10, 2016
Every year brings the same simple goal — to get organized. Yet there you are with barely organized chaos still your secret M.O. Forget the sweeping hard-to-keep New Year’s resolutions!
“The biggest mistake people make is that they do not have small goals,” shares Kimberly Williams, principal of Order Extraordinaire LLC in Muskogee, OK. “They get burned out and come January 1, they’re worse off than when they started.” Williams advises setting a timer for 15 minutes every day and focusing a small goal, like “getting rid of all of the pens in my desk that don’t work.”
Try one or more of these often overlooked techniques to get you on the road to organization:
1. Reorganize financial files. Develop a records management system for financial documents that’s designed around taxes and other required reporting, advises JeFreda Brown, CEO with Goshen Business Group LLC in Birmingham, AL. This improves efficiency at tax-filing time, and it’s as simple as one, two, three. First, talk to your CPA. “An accountant can provide a list of to-do items for business owners so they know [how] to be filed and ready for tax time,” she says. Second, devise a plan that covers all the financial facets of your business, from daily expenses to loans to taxes. Third, place the records in file and hanging folders and stow those in storage units or filing boxes.
Pro Tip: Before you throw a shredding party, take a close look at this list of critical documents to retain.
2. Consolidate cables. “How often do you and your team struggle with technological spaghetti in the form of tangled and unruly cords in your office or on the go? I would bet that you do many times a day,” laughs Pittsburgh-based Katie Mazzocco, CEO of Full Spectrum Productivity. “From a visual and utilitarian perspective, it’s frustrating and inefficient. Cable ties are an easy-to-use tool for bundling and streamlining the cords in your office. By using these, you and your entire team will become more productive and less stressed."
3. Coordinate your contacts. Have a million contacts in about as many places? Consolidate them into one system for easy access. “For active [customer] contacts, the best place to consolidate is an email database,” says Erik Harbison, chief marketing officer for AWeber Communications in Chalfont, PA. Investigate a contact management system that integrates across desktop and mobile systems. Got a stack of business cards in your desk from last season’s trade show circuit? Get a business card scanner and upload the data to your digital contact system.
Pro Tip: Select a larger format document scanner that enables you to scan those cards, plus receipts and other financial items for uploading directly into accounting and financial software.
4. Organize outreach. Uncoordinated promotion and outreach wastes time and money. Save both — and generate more business –– with a more organized approach to marketing. First, audit your online outreach and traditional marketing activities. Then develop a coordinated plan. “An awesome product or service is useless if you don’t have a marketing plan in place to let people know about it,” declares Harbison. “Planning gives you the direction you need so you can organize your thinking, energies and possible expenses.” Sit down with a wall calendar to map out sales goals and holidays that are important for your business, then get familiar with social media management tools to organize your activities.
“Being organized is freeing,” Williams concludes. “When you are organized, you hit maximum functionality.”
Find more freeing and functional products at the Staples Business Center.