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How to Clean Up Your Act

Posted May 3rd, 2007 by ybo

It’s been said that the average American businessperson loses six weeks a year while searching for lost or misplaced articles in messy desks and files. Six weeks! Who can spare that?

If mess is robbing you of precious time, here are six spring-cleaning tips to help you take control:

Go digital. Cut down on the paper in your life. Scan vital documents and create a filing system for your electronic data that mirrors the one you have for paper. Sort, file and purge electronic information regularly. For ideas on how to reduce your paper glut, visit the National Association of Professional Organizers at www.napo.net.
Stop the e-mail madness. You’ve got mail – way too much of it. Create an e-mail flow system. Once you’ve read an e-mail, treat it the same way you should a paper document: Don’t leave it in your in-box. Trash it, forward it, respond to it, or file it for follow-up or future reference.
Call for backup. It’s risky business to run a business without a data backup plan. As the data continue to pour in each week, the gigabytes could exceed your storage capacity. Worse, you could lose irreplaceable data in the event of a catastrophe such as fire or theft. But now even the smallest of businesses can choose from a range of ways to store their data, including:
- Flash memory thumb drives, especially handy for mobile professionals
- External hard drives, which add more storage when you connect them to your computer
- Network-attached storage, or NAS. NAS can be added to a network through a wired or wireless Ethernet connection.
- Online storage, which provides remote storage and backup on the Internet. Because it’s off-site, it can be a good way to protect your NAS backup from a catastrophe that could claim the gigabytes on your PC – from fire to theft.
Cut the cables. Welcome to the jumble: connector cables, power cords, CPUs, surge protectors, phone lines and more can contribute to the clutter and chaos. If the modern workplace has you tied in knots, consider a wireless keyboard and laser mouse system. New generations of these devices, such as the Logitech EasyCall Desktop www.logitech.com, can communicate with your PC through a voice-over Internet protocol (VoIP)-enabled speakerphone system. In other words, your phone calls travel over the Internet just like e-mail messages.
Create a paper flow system. For the paper you have left even after going digital, once you’ve reviewed a document, don’t put it back on your desk or in-box. Follow through with the decision you’ve made by discarding it, delegating it, responding to it, or filing it for follow-up or future reference.
Put things away as soon as you stop working on them. If you get interrupted, post a sticky note on the page you’re working on, jot your thoughts on it and then file it, writes Fortune’s Anne Fisher. The note will help you start where you left off.

If all else fails, give your ego a boost with a visit to the www.flickr.com photo collection site. Search for “messy desks” to see just how chaotic things can get. Or check out this new book that comes to the defense of the messy ones: “A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder” by Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman, Little Brown & Co.