You’re busy. We get how overwhelming that can feel. And the demands on your time seem to be increasing, not decreasing. So while you may not be able to decrease your workload, you can maximize your efficiency by changing how you organize your efforts.

Managing Your Physical Environment

Simply put, this is your desk, and it reflects how you tackle and complete your work. Improving organization starts with organizing your physical space so you’re not wasting time. You want to be able to easily find what you put here, to help promote focus and workflow. So would you say your desk looks more like a clean room or a Dumpster fire?

Now let’s take a look at the collaborative spaces that help power your team. In an open-office environment, is the space arranged to maximize communication and collaboration? Do employees have a place to retreat when they need extra focus or privacy?

Managing Your Time

Having an organized workspace helps with time management, but where else can you maximize the hours in the day? How much time do you spend in meetings, which tend to be a huge time suck? Meeting attendance isn’t always in your control, but you may be able to safely skip or delegate meetings, or suggest a change to the collaborative process that eliminates the meeting.

When it comes to your own time, try organizing your calendar into task-related blocks. Select a date and a start and finish time when you intend to tackle certain tasks. Take some time at the beginning and end of each day to review and update your calendar.

Managing Your Digital Storage

Whether it’s your local computer, the shared server, or the cloud, your company uses the digital world to organize and manage its assets. And we’ve all been at the mercy of someone who randomly names files, sticks them in whatever folders, and yet expects other people to make sense of it. No! These assets need to be organized so that anyone can locate them. This calls for a strategy that makes sense: specific and descriptively named folders containing specific and descriptively named files. Try out a universal naming system, like, CLIENT-TOPIC-YEAR.

In Conclusion

The better your company’s organization, the better your productivity. Using these tips, how can you organize your physical environment, your time, and your digital store to increase your company’s results?