Tip of the Week: Improving Your Organization Throughout the New Year

We all want to make our businesses more efficient, because the more efficient a business is, the more effective it can be. One clear way to do so is to boost your business’ organization tactics - both literally, and more abstractly. For today’s tip, we’ll cover what we mean, and share a few strategies for you to employ.

Now, to literally become more organized, you’ll need to better manage your documents, keeping your workspace clean (and, of course, motivating your crew to do the same). On the abstract side, we’re describing all of the digital storage and tools that can help you keep your business on track. Let’s dive in, starting with the literal.

Managing Your Documents

While paperless offices are increasing in popularity, you may have business-related reasons to continue keeping paper copies of things, along with other kinds of documents that are generated as hard copies by their nature. This includes things like handouts, business cards, and quickly-jotted-down notes. This situation makes a document management system a worthwhile investment, so that once you’ve sorted through your collected documents, you can move forward with a better option for organizing them.

Cloud solutions are a good place to store digital files, as they allow controlled collaboration with those who need access to certain files and resources.

You may also want to reconsider if a paperless system would work for you. Many of the reasons that hardcopies were once necessary are now able to be attended to digitally - like collecting signatures, organizing receipts, even retaining business cards.

Working in the Right Space

While we’re working on reducing the paper clutter in the office, keep in mind that an organized workspace can provide significant boosts to productivity. Encourage your users to minimize distractions on their desk - but don’t ban any personalization, either, unless it would be inappropriate for other reasons. While organization is easier with less to occupy a given space, some level of personalization can help an employee stay engaged, and less like they are in a bubble.

In order to better organize a workspace, encourage your employees to manage things as they go, rather than letting items or documents stack up in a “to-do” pile. Each thing on their desk should also have a set place to be, allowing them to more quickly find what it is that they need - contributing to fewer impacts upon their focus.

Use Various Business Organization Tools

There are many different solutions that, as we briefly referenced above, can help you to digitize and organize your assorted resources and files. These include:

• Contact Management - Rather than the antiquated Rolodex or address book, there are software titles that make it simpler to manage your contacts. A comprehensive customer relationship management solution can fulfill this need, as well as many others.
• Accounting and Bookkeeping - A business’ cash flow is critical to its success, and the more organized it is, the less likely it is that mistakes will be made. With options to assist your invoicing, payment acceptance, and cash flow management, we can help you here.
• Communication - A big part of organization is the ability to communicate with the rest of your team regarding where different things are, as well as their status. From email platforms, instant messaging solutions, and project management solutions, there are various means of encouraging this kind of communication.

Organizing your business can be much simpler than it sounds, especially with Walsh IT Group helping you. Reach out to us at (832) 295-1445 for more!