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- Tips For an Efficient Business: Staying Organized
Tips For an Efficient Business: Staying Organized
- By Donna Hutchinson
- Published 04/4/2009
- The Laws of Leadership , Entrepreneurial Success
- Unrated
Donna Hutchinson
Donna Hutchinson is the owner of On The Edge Fitness Educators (www.edgefit.ca). She is an experienced fitness businesses coach and author of her own book, "The How-to Guide to Starting Your Own Personal Training Business".
View all articles by Donna Hutchinson
If you’re running your own business, and if things are going well, you’re probably suffering from the necessary evil of any business – ‘extreme difficulty staying organized syndrome.’ If you find yourself forgetting appointments, double booking events, losing business cards and calling back the wrong people, chances are you need to diagnose and treat your condition or else suffer further from an inefficient business (yes, you could be even more successful). The following tips will help in making sure you’re maximizing profits by maximizing organization:
Get an agenda, electronic, paper or otherwise. Use your Blackberry, your online booking system, a piece of paper, a notebook – whatever works for you. Write things down and keep them in chronological order. Reserve spaces for each day of the week and leave room to book in last-minute events. Keep the agenda where you will always have access to it. Always, always look at your agenda BEFORE saying yes to an appointment or event.
Clean up! If you can do it yourself, hire someone to do it. If there are piles and piles of documents on your desk, plus last week’s lunch, chances are something important is buried under there that could be of value to your business. If no one cleans up, it will forever be lost and forgotten. It’s also amazing how much of that junk is worthy being trashed. Why stress yourself out with a desk that looks more overwhelming than it needs to be? If you compress what you need to do, you’ll go faster.
Make a list. Again, electronic or on paper, it doesn’t matter. Leave checkboxes so you can check things off and feel proud of yourself that things got done. This will help you better estimate the value you got out of your day and you can look back after a week and see that you’ve actually accomplished a lot. Then who knows, you might reward yourself with a break! A happy business woman is a successful business woman, right?
Use a corkboard (or something like that). Some things need to be always visible, like that list of networking meetings you can go to, or your directory of important phone numbers and, of course, the heart-warming photos of your loved ones to make you smile throughout the day. Instead of having them sit on your desk, put them on a corkboard, magnetic board or something on the wall to clear up space.
Get a business card organizer. Every time you get a business card from someone you should write down the date and place you met them. Then store it away so you don’t lose it. Some devices are flappable, and others come with A-Z index cards – chose one you like and keep it in a safe place!
Have an ‘in-progress’ folder. Pull things out when you have a spare moment to work on them and stuff things in there when other, more pressing matters come up. The point is that you’ll always know where they are and you’ll always have something to get done.
Hopefully these tips will help you save time and return a profit, or at least let you know where you’re going with your business and how you can improve. In end though, it all boils down to habit. If you’re naturally a messy or disorganized person, it’ll be harder to implement these principles at first. If you fail, don’t be discouraged – just get up and keep trying until you have it all in place!
Get an agenda, electronic, paper or otherwise. Use your Blackberry, your online booking system, a piece of paper, a notebook – whatever works for you. Write things down and keep them in chronological order. Reserve spaces for each day of the week and leave room to book in last-minute events. Keep the agenda where you will always have access to it. Always, always look at your agenda BEFORE saying yes to an appointment or event.
Clean up! If you can do it yourself, hire someone to do it. If there are piles and piles of documents on your desk, plus last week’s lunch, chances are something important is buried under there that could be of value to your business. If no one cleans up, it will forever be lost and forgotten. It’s also amazing how much of that junk is worthy being trashed. Why stress yourself out with a desk that looks more overwhelming than it needs to be? If you compress what you need to do, you’ll go faster.
Make a list. Again, electronic or on paper, it doesn’t matter. Leave checkboxes so you can check things off and feel proud of yourself that things got done. This will help you better estimate the value you got out of your day and you can look back after a week and see that you’ve actually accomplished a lot. Then who knows, you might reward yourself with a break! A happy business woman is a successful business woman, right?
Use a corkboard (or something like that). Some things need to be always visible, like that list of networking meetings you can go to, or your directory of important phone numbers and, of course, the heart-warming photos of your loved ones to make you smile throughout the day. Instead of having them sit on your desk, put them on a corkboard, magnetic board or something on the wall to clear up space.
Get a business card organizer. Every time you get a business card from someone you should write down the date and place you met them. Then store it away so you don’t lose it. Some devices are flappable, and others come with A-Z index cards – chose one you like and keep it in a safe place!
Have an ‘in-progress’ folder. Pull things out when you have a spare moment to work on them and stuff things in there when other, more pressing matters come up. The point is that you’ll always know where they are and you’ll always have something to get done.
Hopefully these tips will help you save time and return a profit, or at least let you know where you’re going with your business and how you can improve. In end though, it all boils down to habit. If you’re naturally a messy or disorganized person, it’ll be harder to implement these principles at first. If you fail, don’t be discouraged – just get up and keep trying until you have it all in place!
