The secret to being productive and efficient lies within your organizational skills. If you are surrounded by chaos, with documents lying all over the place, then it is hard to focus and concentrate on the work at hand. Similarly, if your filing system on your PC is out of control, you will be losing lots of time when you need to search for documents.
Change your way of working and discover a whole new level of productivity, as you save time and concentrate on other more important tasks.
Here are a few tips on getting rid of any document anarchy:
Re-orgazine your files – This works for both hard and soft copies. Depending on the type of work you do, you will be able to identify ways to save time. By archiving your old files and just leaving the ones you frequently use at the top level of your file hierarchy, you will save hours of time over the long-term, as you won’t be searching through your long list of files every day.
Re-organizing your files will also help to ensure that you don’t lose data. If you are working on important documents, the last thing you want to do is lose them by accidentally saving over them or someone else moving them. Organize your files so that your important files are ‘permission only’ accessible to reduce the chance of losing data or being hacked. If you do lose data, then you should be able to recover it by using companies that provide a wide range of data recovery services like my sql data repair.
Clear your desk – Having a clear desk will help you to concentrate on your tasks fully at hand, so at the end of every day make sure to get rid of any clutter and put things away in drawers. Minimalism is ‘in’ for a reason.
Plan ahead – If you know what your plans for the next few weeks are, and you come across relevant information and/or documents, make sure to save them or bookmark them for future projects. By doing this, you save spending time looking for them later on.
Use desktop shortcuts and favorites – If you are working on the same applications, systems or websites on a regular basis, save a quick link that’ll enable you to get there quicker. By using this shortcut, you will no longer need to spend time typing out web addresses.
Improve processes – Work out where you are spending the largest amounts of your time and analyze whether you can improve the processes. Sometimes there will be a simple method either through an excel formula, an app, or some other kind of tool that will make the process quicker and your life easier.
For project management and online collaboration, there are a vast number of tools available, ready to help you save time. Talk to colleagues and see if there are any methods that they can recommend. Also, look for tasks that can be delegated to apps such as admin work.
