This is a great source to get your desk organized and increase productivity, excerpted from an article, 5 Questions To Help Organize Your Desk from Productivity501.com. We suggest The Paper Tiger Document Management Software and Filing System to help you keep track of your files. The Paper Tiger is also an awesome tool to organize many other things in addition to paper files. See The Many Uses of The Paper Tiger
Look at your desk right now. Is it messy? If so, don’t feel too bad. It isn’t uncommon. This post is a series of questions to ask about the stuff that is currently on your desk. Asking these questions will help you find the cause of a messy desk and give you some ideas for stopping the disorganization at its root. This is vastly more beneficial than simply taking the time to clean your desk right now, because if you don’t change your process and organization, you’ll be back in the same position in a week or so.
Does your desk contain items that need to be filed?
If there are items on your desk that need to be filed, but haven’t yet been organized, ask yourself, “why”? Why are they still sitting on your desk? Is your filing cabinet too far away? Is the filing process a pain, so you set things on your desk rather than put them away? Right now on my desk I have several pieces of paper related to taxes that I haven’t filed. I really don’t have an excuse. There is a stack on a nearby desk that my assistant will scan into my paperless filing system, but I just put the paper on my desk instead of where it belongs.
Why would I do this? Over the past week, I’ve been very busy and I’ve set some items on my desk that don’t really belong there. If my desk were clean other than just those two or three pieces of tax-related papers, I would probably have put them away. So keep in mind that clutter causes clutter. Keeping an organized desk will help you stay organized. Keeping a cluttered desk will encourage you to put more on it because “one more piece of paper doesn’t really matter.”
Are there papers on your desk that require action?
This is a big area of desk clutter–things that require your action that you haven’t gotten to yet. Take a look at these types of papers and write a number in the corner (or on a sticky tab) indicating the number of minutes you feel it would take to deal with them, or at least take the first action that would be required. If you have a bunch of 2 to 5 minute items, you would probably be better off doing them as they come in. Is there a reason you didn’t just pay that bill when you opened it? Is there a reason you didn’t sign and send back that form when you got it? Understanding why you put off the action will help you understand how to keep those papers off your desk in the first place.
Papers that require longer action may be a bit more problematic. However, is your desk the best place to keep papers like this? At the very least, they should go into some sort of inbox so they will all be together. If you have a lot of papers that require action in the future, use some sort of tickler system to remind you when they need your attention. Of course, if you have papers that require attention, but not necessarily your attention, they can be delegated and put on your assistant’s desk or inbox.
Read the complete article 5 Questions to Help Organize Your Desk: http://www.productivity501.com/5-questions-to-help-organize-your-desk/7045/#ixzz0j1CMC9qx
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Tags: get organized, Productivity
