It’s 2018, and the year is already rolling by fast – and if you don’t act quickly, you could get to the year’s end without taking the opportunity to optimally organize your business and your life.
Now, you may be thinking that one small article can’t solve all your organizational challenges, but implement the following six pieces of organizational advice, and you’ll be surprised at the impact they have:
1. Declutter Your Office
Nothing wastes time and causes stress like having to hunt through a lot of old, unneeded papers to find the one you’re looking for. And having an office crowded and overflowing with unnecessary items can make you feel cramped and cramp your work style too.
First step to organizing your business: throw out, donate, or recycle everything you don’t actually need. Anything you aren’t actually using or that you won’t use anytime soon, either get rid of immediately or put into storage somewhere.
2. Move Files to The Cloud
Learn to use Sharepoint: it will revolutionize your ability to manage large numbers of business files with maximum efficiency. Scan receipts (the IRS accepts them scanned) and all other paperwork you possibly can, and throw out the bulky paper version. Get an introduction to Sharepoint categories, folders, metadata, content types, and other important facets of managing your Document Library.
Online document storage means greater accessibility, ease of sharing documents, ability to cooperate on document creation from a distance, and powerful search tools. And that means less clutter in your office!
3. Finally Clean Up Your Email and Voicemail
Clutter can annoy you and trip you up in your email and voicemail accounts too, so nip it in the bud this year. Unsubscribe from every email you don’t want or need, and relegate to spam whatever you can’t eliminate.
Delete those old emails and voicemails – the ones that have been there for the last 12 months. To see and hear what’s truly important, you need to get rid of what’s not.
4. Start Using Evernote
Evernote is a free app that turns your smartphone into a handy notepad you can use throughout your day. You know that if you don’t write it down when you think of it, it will vanish from your mind until it’s too late and leave you saying “How could I have forgotten about that?”
Evernote solves all that, without the need to use (and not lose) small pads of paper. And add on Web Clipper to Evernote, and you can grab articles, pics, and other Web content and save that for later too!
5. Invest in Quality CRM Software
Even for small businesses, the sheer quantity and complexity of customer and prospect related data can be difficult to manage. But modern customer relationship management (CRM) software lifts that load off your shoulders.
CRM can track every interaction your sales team has with customers, collect all useful customer data over months and years, and then mine that data and present it in the form of metrics and charts and the like that let you gauge your progress, get the big picture, and identify areas for improvement.
6. Track and Manage Your Projects Better
Your business life can become quite complicated, with multiple projects you’re on all going forward at once. TaskQue is a great (and free) task management app that makes it easy to track and manage all your important business tasks.
You can see it all progress step by step, watch old tasks reach completion and new ones pop up. This app can be as encouraging as it is useful!
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