The Efficient Office

Beat the #1 complaint. Email overwhelm!

We know what items are necessary in our office; desk, file cabinet, computer and telephone.

BUT..efficiency depends you have your office set up. Here are some questions to consider when setting up your office for maximum results:

This year, as you’re watching others escape for much needed vacations at the beach or you’re cooped up in a late day meeting, start thinking about how these seven tips will help you control the amount of time that you spend in the office, and enable you to embrace the personal side of your life.

Breaking out of the habit of working long hours and weekends in an effort to be viewed as a valued partner or service provider can be tough. Breaking the cycle requires commitment. It means setting goals and boundaries for yourself in this area and then making small changes over time. But, you can get there! By next summer, you too might be able to break away from your meetings with enough time to take a swim before dinner!

A single two-second distraction could cost you 15 minutes of your day! When your concentration is interrupted, it takes up to 15 minutes to get your focus back.

The truth of the matter is that it’s those critical thinking tasks and attention to detail that truly make us truly indispensible in business and life not the number of strike-throughs on our task lists. Without focus, we never drive past the tasks to arrive at the critical thinking part of our work. Learn ways to start single-tasking to stay more focused and achieve more in business and in life.

Any time of year is perfect for thinking about how to work more effectively, but as the New Year rolls around and today’s goals are at the forefront of your mind, it makes sense to pause and evaluate how you spend your time, if your time is being used most effectively, and to make changes where it is not so that you can achieve these new goals more rapidly.

As you start to consider what you want to accomplish in 2011, make sure that you’re using the SMART goal method.

Never run out of supplies again. Keep ‘Item Specific’ index cards stored with the item.

What documents do we need to keep? When can we discard records? Where and how is the best way to store documents? Why do we need to keep all of this stuff?