Tag Archives: Info Mgmt

Off the Office Hamster Wheel in 5 Easy Steps

29 Friday Apr 2016

Posted by in Business, Office, Organizing, Planning, Stress, Time, Work Space

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Hamster in Orange Wheel

The definition of a hamster wheel is when someone just keeps running in circles (and making the same mistakes) instead of progressing.

A bit of planning can get you off that wheel and help you to feel better about your mornings.  Review again at the end of the day and organizing is just as important.

Here are 5 easy steps to get control and off the wheel: . . .

Emails – Instead of phone calls (unless it’s an immediate need), send an email.  This will help you AND others to save time.  In addition, I color-code emails to clearly see the status.  After sending an email with a request, I move it back into my “Inbox” and tag it with GREEN.  When receiving an email with a request, I tag it in RED and it shows as an outstanding item.

Voicemail – Unless you’re in customer service, you probably don’t have to answer every call. If possible, block out time to let calls go to voicemail so that you can concentrate on specific projects or tasks.  Even better, close your office door and cut other distractions.

Reducing Paper – A multi-page scanner is a great investment.  Scan correspondence, invoices, receipts, contracts, etc.  You will save filing space and it’s a faster way of sharing information with others.   Make sure you have a logical filing system on your computer or server to find what you need later and don’t forget to back up the files!

Task Lists – These are necessities.  If you don’t have a structured system, develop it now.  If you have one, ask yourself “How effective is this?”   “Can I clearly see the priorities?” “Do I have due dates and times associated with each task?”

End of Day – set an alert to sound 1 hour before the end of your work day.  This will give you time for the following:

  1. Find a good “stopping place” for what you’re currently working on.
  2. Review unchecked voice mails and emails and add them to your task list by priority
  3. Tidy up your desk and physical surroundings for the next morning.

The hamster called, he wants his wheel back and you don’t need it anymore.

Hamster Wheel for Sale

For Busy Business People – Google

20 Sunday Apr 2014

Posted by in Business, Organizing, Personal, Planning, Time, Work Space

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Google - all appsDo you use Google?  Do you use it to its maximum potential to save you TIME and increase Communication AND save Money?

Google - contacts to cell

 

Contacts – Add co-workers, clients, or vendors for immediate auto-dialing and texting.

Email Groups – create “Groups when adding contacts and send one email to multiple people for faster, clearer communication.Google Mail

Multiple Emails – set up multiple email accounts to respond by business entities/divisions (or even personal).  Switch back and forth between email addresses and they stay separate.

Google Calendar Image

Multiple, Integrated Calendars – these are automatically color-coded and can be viewed separately or integrated.  Have office meetings, projects and deadlines in one location with pop-up reminders sent via email to all those involved. Reduce the confusion and increase the accountability!

Google Drive 2

Cloud – upload files to Google Drive and create access for everyone to review and types of documents whether agendas, meeting notes, spreadsheets or PDFs.  (No reason to open a laptop or even a tablet!)

What does this mean to you? 

Integration = Efficiency = Time Savings = Focus – All the information you need is at your fingertips to make decisions on the spot

Here’s Google’s mission, shouldn’t it be yours?Google - Mission 2

If you need help or training with any of these features, feel free to phone or email!

 

3 Techniques to Work Less & Accomplish MORE

15 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Business, Office, Organizing, Planning, Time

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resting

Establish Goals – to manage anyone or anything (paper, projects, tasks or information) priorities must be established.  (Remember, the key to victory is to share information with all who will be contributing to the success!)

  1. Priorities – list in order the key factors to your success
  2. Planning – attach goals to each dynamic and assess how much time you will need to achieve them.
  3. Preparation – schedule appropriate time and include potential costs incurred to realize the goal.

Benefits

  1. Management skills – A well-organized manager will exude confidence and control in an organization.
  2. Managing well establishes a sense of trust and professionalism to both employees and customers.
  3. An organized office creates a more relaxed environment where employees are aware and ready for the work ahead.

Systems & Procedures – review your current administrative process for redundancies or bottlenecks.  Define the process and put it in writing so there is clear direction for recurring tasks & responsibilities.

Benefits:

  1. Time Savings – less time correcting mistakes, searching for information or and answering duplicate questions.
  2. Money savings – you no longer purchase duplicate inventory or supplies for what you can’t find when you need it.
  3. More time for REAL productivity

Benchmarks & Tracking – by setting standards and regular goals you can track of your progress.  Whether you choose to review quarterly, monthly, weekly (or all), do it as often as it takes to stay focused on the priorities

Benefits:

  1. Greater success in reaching goals due to greater focus on key areas.
  2. Better communications and information sharing results in a stronger team.

The Home Command Center

17 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by in Organizing, Planning, Residential

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Home Command Ctr - Mid-Level

What is a Home Command Center?  This is the hub of a home, the place where adults and kids can find the answer to the everyday questions.  “What time is practice?  What’s for dinner?  What time are we leaving on Friday? Where’s your homework? Did you do your chores?”)

How do you start one for your family? 

First, choose the right space – look carefully at the most-used family entrance or possibly an area in the kitchen (since it’s usually the busiest room in the house). Your Home Command Center should be the first place everyone sees when they leave in the morning and the first place they see when they walk back in the door.

Second – Start simple with an open wall area and hang a corkboard, chalkboard and or a whiteboard.  Include the family calendar, school lunch menu, emergency numbers and important contacts for quick reference.  This is also a great place to have a household chores checklist and leave space for family members to leave notes and reminders.

Start small and let this area grow with your family, you may expand it later to include folders, key hooks, an area for book bags, backpacks or eventually a home computer and have your house go digital.

If you can, include the whole family.

Make a game of taking young children to the calendar and talking about what’s coming up.  Put stickers, play dates and fun events on the calendar so they get in the habit of wanting to look at it.  As they get bigger you can include chores and make a checklist with stickers so that they can mark them off and feel a sense of accomplishment when they’re all done! 

Make a habit of talking about these things each night and what you need to add or take away from the board or calendar.  (This should reduce the times you at 9 pm that Johnny needs 3 dozen cookies for home room in the morning.)

Home Command Ctr - Simple

Older Children

This is the family center, not just a one-way communique from parent to child.  Encourage kids to leave messages for you and have them write on the calendar if there are changes in practice times, school events, or parties.

This is a place for communication to begin and expectations (chores, homework) to be defined.  Make it a positive and surprise them with a “get out of chores free” card or a treat; they’ll look forward to checking the board even when you aren’t there. 

A simple calendar and a single place for communication can save time, energy and avoid a lot of frustration.

The Home Command Center is where information is kept in one location for the benefit of ALL.

 Need help building your own Home Command Center?  Feel free to email or phone me.

P.S. – Later I’ll share tips and templates for gathering and keeping critical information you may want to include in your Home Command Center.

A Sinking Ship

02 Wednesday Oct 2013

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Drowning in Paper

Twenty years ago we were told our offices would soon be paperless, but here we are still sinking in it!  Instead of tossing the paper, we now scan it, file it electronically, AND keep the hard copies.  Here’s a couple of interesting facts:

  •  80% of papers and information that we keep, we never use (Agency Sales Magazine)
  •  The average employee in administration wastes two weeks per year retrieving misplaced information from messy desks and files. (The Wall Street Journal)

So we have all this information in two forms, but how much good is it if we can’t find what we need when we need it?   Are you looking for a preserver to save your sanity or a raft to stop you from drowning?  ?  Here’s an acronym for four simple steps to save yourself – R.A.F.T. 

REFER – this includes anything that is dependent upon someone else for the next step or needs to be delegated.  Gather all of your “refer” items and send them to the responsible person to handle.  If you do this in email, take those emails and color-code or label them as “Waiting for a Reply or Item” and then you can follow-up easily. (Gmail is great for this!)

ACT – these items you need to work on alone.  The first step is gathering your active items together and summarizing for deadlines and priorities. Once you have that done, I recommend looking at your desk to see if there are any papers that can be handled in 2 minutes or less! Getting rid of clutter is the first step and it’s so encouraging!

FILE – Don’t wait until your filing system is perfect, just start from where you are and use whatever system is logical for you until you have either time or help to refine or customize a system for you.

TOSS – You may want to contact a CPA or professional organizer about a records retention.  If not, there’s a lot of great information on the internet.  For everything else, refer, act, file or toss it!

Think you don’t have time to get the paper organized?  Than ask yourself, “Do I have more time next month to feel frustrated and more time to waste looking for things?”

Wouldn’t it be better to feel like this!  

Freed from Paper

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Homepreneurs & Solopreneurs

22 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by in Business, Office, Organizing, Personal, Time, Work Space

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More than half of all U.S. businesses are based at home and an estimated 6.6 million home-based enterprises provide at least half of their owners’ household income.  Together these “homepreneurs” employ one in 10 private-sector workers.

So how do we separate our home life from our business life?

Having a ‘separation of states’ for managing information (appointments, tasks, email, etc.) is a good beginning. If you can manage it, have a room designated as a home office and let your family know that if the door is closed, you’re not available at that moment.  You can even put a “Be Back in 1 Hour” sign on the door! If you don’t have a spare room, consider a corner of a room and use an attractive room divider so that you have private space to work and think.

Conversely, we need to integrate our work and home life with as little confusion as possible – which is why Google is so popular.  Personal calendars and business calendars can be linked and viewed independently or jointly (each calendar is a different color).  When adding an event, view the combined appointment calendars to reduce the chance of double-bookings.

Google also offers cloud computing and on-line collaboration.  If you’re working on a Word document or Excel spreadsheet, but have to leave the house, just upload it to the cloud and later you can access it from your smartphone to make changes and add content. Additionally, business and personal email accounts can be linked so you can ‘toggle’ on your phone to access each one separately even when you’re out of the office.

Cloud computing, email, calendars and smartphones have accelerated the trend of independently working from home.  But if we want to be successful, we must stay in tune with both the big picture and details jointly for home and work.

If you have questions, need assistance in setting up an account or would like more information about the benefits, feel free to email me.

If you have any tips or favorite planning applications, I would love to hear from you!

If you would like to receive my Blogs, click the “Follow” box on the left side of the screen above the calendar.  I always enjoy tips and feedback!