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Organizing Your Work Life
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If you work in an office, life can be hectic. There are reports to keep up with, endless meetings, people to buttonhole so you can get the information necessary to do your job, company politics to handle -- and on top of all that, you have to keep track of your electronics, your business cards and briefcase. And of course our Employee ID badges (with the bad hair day photo) complete with the latest style of beaded lanyards. Thank goodness no one told us about all these things when we were kids, or we just might have taken the Peter Pan route and not grown up at all. Since it's too late for that, all you can do is the next best thing: organize.
Organize your stuff
The days when an office worker had little more to take care of than a briefcase, a few papers and an adding machine are long gone. Let's look at a few of the things workers are carrying at any one time:
- Cell phone
- PDA
- Business cards
- Organizer
- Notepads
- Pens and pencils
- Calculator
And the list goes on. Now you may say, "But I usually carry all those things in my briefcase." But do you always carry your briefcase with you to in-house meetings? Most people don't.
Organize yourself
Photo ID badges obviously can't go onto a tablet PC, but you can hang yours on a custom printed lanyard. Your HR department may even have the latest in cool ID badge supplies on hand to help encourage your compliance to company policy. For your business cards, don't hesitate to invest in a small wallet or slim carrying case that will fit in a front pocket; your business supply store should have plenty, for prices that are more than reasonable.
For items like your cell phone, PDA, and organizer, you should invest in holsters that attach to your belt or fit easily into a pocket. Did you know they make custom lanyards you attach to your cell phone? Pretty cool little devices. Not only do these items make it so that you don't have to juggle a bunch of things at once, they serve to protect your electronics. In the interest of simply limiting the number of items you carry, it may be worth your while to invest in a Blackberry, which can take the place of separate cell phone, PDA, and organizer. Or, to be even more efficient, invest in a tablet PC (or get your company to). Not only will you have the power of a PC at your fingertips, you'll have your organizer, PDA, calculator, notepad, writing instrument and notebook all in one slim package. No word on when they're adding cell-phone capabilities.
Organize your time
If you don't have an organizer yet, invest in one -- and then use it religiously (and we don't mean once a week, either). This seems like the most basic of common sense, though you might be surprised at how many harried business people don't bother to organize their time. But there's a reason that Franklin planners and other specialized organizers are a huge success - they work like gangbusters.
Your organizer can be either electronic or paper-based, but be sure to use it every day. A decent organizer should allow you to see at a glance what's coming up on a particular day, and should make it easy for you at schedule events, meetings, or the like. You should have plenty of room to pencil (or type) in project milestones, due dates, and just which of the 25 cleaners on Main Street you left your best suit with last Friday. Not only that, the organizer should include an option that offers at least a week at a glance, so that you can easily get a look at the larger picture. Then, once you've set a schedule, try to follow it -- but don't let yourself become hidebound. There's a term for business people who are inflexible and unorganized in this day and age, and it's "unemployed."
Published with permission (FCDMInc)
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