Small Business Saturday Blog

Let's get organised....

Wednesday, April 25 at 15:26

Is a Better Organised Home Office the Key to Improving Your Productivity?
Do you find it difficult to give appropriate attention to the opportunities and challenges that come up in your business?
Perhaps your car is an extension of your office and you can’t face sitting at your desk when you get home but unopened envelopes and out of date files are taking over your workspace, leaving you feeling overwhelmed, stressed and distracted.
The effect of this disorganisation is often financial — interest or fees are being incurred, or money is being left on the table as invoices remain unprocessed.
Decluttering and organising your office might seem like a tedious and time-consuming task, but your home office is a reflection of you and your business. Putting a simple system in place for managing paperwork means you can lay your hands on documents quickly, be current on your priorities and clearly focus on goals.
You will need:
A shredder and a bin
Separate zones for recycling, shredding or filing
Transparent files and sticky labels
A progress tray — for items that need an action or are awaiting a response
Space — the floor, dining table or kitchen worktop
A lockable, fireproof filing cabinet and suspension files
A rough idea of what categories you want to set up going forward i.e. business travel, insurance, registrations. Others will naturally emerge as you go through the process
Break the task down into bite-sized chunks over a few sessions. Just set aside some time, grab a drink and snack and put on some motivational tunes!
Organising Paperwork
Gather every piece of paper relating to your business, including any from attics or garages
Separate items into piles for shredding, recycling and filing.
Roughly group the ‘filing’ papers by category i.e. financial, travel etc., and label suspension files. Ideally, set aside a drawer of the filing cabinet for archived paperwork
Quickly shred/recycle
Go through the remaining items; group related papers together in transparent files with a label on the front i.e. insurance policy, car documents etc.
Items that need an action/response should be placed in your progress tray
Put everything else in the appropriate sections within the filing cabinet, ensuring it is all stored securely — this includes archived paperwork.
“For every minute spent organising, an hour is earned.” Benjamin Franklin
Progress Not Perfection
Going forward, aim to deal with paperwork on a daily basis;
Dispose of junk mail. Check and action bills and invoices. Place pending items in the progress tray
File or shred everything else
Conduct a weekly review of your progress tray and schedule/action any next steps
Once the above system is in place and routinely managed, you will find that rather than searching for documents or trying to recall what is next on your to-do list, your time and attention is freed up to concentrate on business growth and client contact.
About the Author: 
Kate Galbally is a Glasgow-based member of the Association of Professional Declutterers & Organisers (APDO) and the founder of Better Organised. With over twenty years' experience in PA & administrative support roles, she now works alongside clients to streamline their homes and offices so that their lives run more smoothly. www.betterorganised.uk

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