To compete in today’s environment, you’re going to have to learn to do more with less. One of the most important skills you can learn is how to organize better. It’s a complex subject with 100 different opinions about how to do it best, but I will try to hit the hotspots.
You’ll be amazed once you get really organized how much more work you can do or how much more free time you can have and still do the same amount of work you’re now doing. Let’s start with e-mail.
•It’s important that you try to handle e-mail in a timely manner, but it is equally important for your inbox to be almost always empty, or darn close. Make sure you’ve created folders for topics you need to categorize. It’s not unusual to find people with thousands of emails in their inbox. Just take all of them and move them to a new folder marked old e-mails. Starting with the very next e-mails you receive; you should make sure you handle them. Do whatever is required, move them to a folder, or delete them because they’re not important or because you’re finished with them. Try to keep your inbox below 10 e-mails at any given time.
•Let’s talk about folders next. You should save all your documents in folders. In those folders, names should resemble the list of folders you have for emails. When you need to save a document, you save it in the documents. You don’t leave it in an e-mail.
•Finally, let’s discuss lists. It’s important that you make lots of lists. Whether tracked with an electronic device or not, successful people make lots of notes and lists. Don’t feel bad if you have a great deal of them. However, make certain you have a system for how you manage them, how you prioritize them and when you complete them. You may even keep a mini or full-size journal, number the pages, stick post-it notes in it and move them forward if not handled. It’s great to have a journal to take to meetings, never go without one.
•Part of being better organized is learning to delegate. I know – you can do it yourself quicker than someone else can do it. That’s probably right, so I can’t fault that thought. But if it takes someone twice as long to do it as you would take, you still have freed time to go do something more important by delegating. It’s important that you delegate things that you can’t do, shouldn’t do or won’t do. Obviously, at different points in our lives, the list of what you will delegate will change. I’m old, so I want to delegate everything, even though this really isn’t feasible. Regardless of what makes your list of items to delegate, make sure you get organized so that you can do more with less and make more money.
By the way, I do practice what I preach. I dictated this article into an iPhone memo, copied and pasted the memo into a Word document and sent it to my editor, who polished it for you. I have less than five minutes in it. That’s efficient and great delegation!
Remember, only you can make BUSINESS GREAT!
This article was provided by autosalvageconsultant.com, which was formed in 2001 by recyclers for recyclers, to help them improve their businesses.
Published in the July 2022 Edition
