Three Fundamentals for Organizing a Home Office

I often talk to people and they say they know they need to get their office organized, yet very few people take the time out to strategize and organize their office.  These simple three things you absolutely have to possess for organizing your office.  This simple office strategy will help you get started.  You're a busy executive and highly productive, your office at home needs to reflect what you have at your office -- no excuses.

As with almost all other areas of spatial arrangement, organizing a home office does not need a good deal of new items so much as it necessitates time to go over what you have and decide on what you want to do with it. As a business consultant, I tell my clients "don't buy anything before we talk."  It often saves them from making mistakes.  You can get started with a couple of items that you actually have to get in any home office

1. A filing system is one of those things. It could be a crate under your desk with a couple of file folders or it could be a full 4 or 8 drawer filing arrangement. The total you must keep depends on your position and on your private tastes. But either method, you do want some primary files and someplace to store them so that you may set your hands on them when wanted. Figure out what documents you must hold onto and see a path to sort out them that makes sense for you.

2. An action folder is a different thing you want when organizing an office filing system. This tip is a game changer for many of my business coaching clients.  You may have it a file folder, a box, a basket or anything else you desire. The genuine trick is to just make certain that you make one. This action folder, box, whatever, should receive all of the items which you must fulfill on in the next 30 days and they ought to be organized in rank of main concern with the ones you must fulfill on firstly at the topmost.   

3. A method to coordinate your indispensable office supplies is a different one of the staples. (No pun intended!)  You want some basic office supplies and a way for preparing them in your office so that you could get the things complete which you need to do speedily and expeditiously. Get a list of every office supply that you necessitate on a ordinary basis in your office. Then make certain that those things have a place in your house office and that everyone in the household realize that these things need to be remaining in the house office area of your home. They might be utilized by other people of your house but they must remain in the your office place while utilized and need to be returned to where they belong after they are done being applied. Making this as a rule in your household keeps you from having to search for these items when you necessitate them.  You would expect the same from your colleagues at work, so having the same rule at your home office naturally makes sense.

Source:

www.annemcgurty.com

480-442-2014

If You Forget About Your Customers, They'll Forget About You!

Have you ever wondered how are you going to keep up with it all?  How can you run your business, have stellar customer service and still be innovative?  Last week, I had the great opportunity to attend the Infusionsoft Annual Conference #ICON15 in Phoenix.

Thanks to Infusionsoft's new partnership with  eliances, I had the chance to receive a valuable ticket.  I had tons of notes, pages in fact and I'll share with you some of the key takeaways for me.

How do You Fascinate?

I have been a DiSC(R) facilitator for years and have used these profiles with my clients to identify their communication style.  That has been a great foundation and now I have a new tool that I learned from Sally Hogshead.  This tool will help you find even more focused key words to help you with your marketing and even a job search.  If you would like a free sample of this report, through April 30, 2015, add a comment to this post.  I learned that the three adjectives that best describe me are 1. Precise, 2. Sharp, and 3. Under-the-Radar.  As a business consultant, I think that was a great summary.

Automate, Automate, and Automate

Considering automation is the underlying core competency of Infusionsoft, you have to assume that you will learn about automation.  By attending Ryan Deiss' workshop, I got the nuggets of what to do to keep my relationships through newsletters automated with what to say and when.  That may seem a little calloused as I'm writing to my audience now, but let's face it, I do want to keep in touch with you because when you think about needing a business coach, accountability or business consulting, I do want to be top of mind with you.  With automation, I can get those processes in place to keep in touch and be spot on focused when we work together.  

Facebook for Business

Hooray for Krupa Patel.  Like me, she grew up in a family owned business.  Growing up in a day when social media was simply attending the Chamber of Commerce meeting, I related to her stories.  I was also thrilled to know how she used Facebook for Business was spot on for how I coach my clients to use Facebook and other social media platforms like Google Plus.  Make sure you have a personal profile as well as a business page if you want to use Facebook for your business.  The goal of social media is to educate your audience. If you want to sell on social media, do spend the money to boost your posts.  Personally, I'm a little guilty of being a little salesy - it's a process.  Think before you post.  I've been coached to think, will what I tell my audience save them money, make them more money and is it interesting or something they didn't know.  (That's thanks to my friend David Green, author of The Invisible Hand.)

Business today is more personal than ever, so every relationship takes more nurturing,  I know that I have over 6,000 people in my database so that's a lot of conversations and faces and businesses to remember.  Keeping in touch with everyone does need to have an automated system in place, with understanding my personality strengths, I can be focused in my conversations and with social media we can tune in on what's going on personally and professionally.

Thanks for being part of my community. 

Learn the Process How to Get Organized

I learned a long time ago that there has to be a system for working with each client. I have several areas we address, and not all clients need to address all areas. We focus on what makes sense to their situation. That being said, it’s kind of simple. As I ask in my keynote address, I pose the question, “What’s going on here?” What is happening is not always as obvious as they think it might be. In posing the question, we begin to dig deeper to ultimately identify root causes. The question registers in their mind that something’s not working.

Then we go about “checking in” by using assessment tools. Once they check in with themselves, we are able to identify the problem or problems. In my book Lost In Your Own Office, I give tips for focusing on some main areas common to most of my clients:

·         Space

An inefficient work-space can significantly impact your productivity. Studies show that each year 1.8 million workers develop injuries related to ergonomic factors. That translates into an annual productivity cost of more than $60 billion. 

·         Paper and files

o    Pilers and filers

Everyone has their own work style, and these work styles have now expanded to virtual workspaces. Creating systems to store information—paper and electronic—and make it easily accessible are an ever-increasing demand for all businesses. As I mentioned previously, the average person spends 150 hours retrieving or redoing misplaced information. 

o    Contact information

When I wrote my book, social media hadn’t really been in everyday conversations, so I focused primarily on managing business cards and creating systems to maintain relationships. Today, however, contacts and depositories for their data are multiplying. People not only have business cards, customer databases, such as Outlook, they also have LinkedIn profiles, Facebook, Twitter, and now Google+.  Managing relationships is probably one of the most critical parts of running a business. So, having systems to manage contacts is part of being well organized.

·         Time management

This area is more about priorities. We all have the same amount of time, so it really can’t be managed. Most clients can benefit by evaluating their life passions and looking at what they really want out of life. I can then help them address their commitment to focus their time on what really matters.

·         The stuff

This means clearing the clutter. “Containerizing” what is essential along with simplifying or eliminating what’s not necessary.

·         Email

This pertains to synchronization to a central location, such as your smart phones. It also involves making decisions on how and when to address email along with learning how to use email as a tool rather than the driver of your daily business.

·         Maintenance

How are you going to do your business and your life differently so that you can stay on the path of organization and improved personal productivity? My coaching programs may kick in at this point to set up a long-term relationship of accountability and address new goals as my client’s life priorities and interests change.

My experience with clients is that each of these areas are common denominators and once we assess them, then we get the right key (tool or process) to improve that area of inefficiency. Hotel keys come in all sizes and styles—some are simple manual keys, some are more sophisticated electronic card keys. It’s the same with organization and productivity solutions. Depending on the sophistication or style of your environment, you’ll need a key that is best for you. 

Once my clients have the right key, then they can freely open the door to the opportunity for relaxation (or at the very least, the opportunity for better efficiency). Finding the right solution for each of the main areas allows the client to move forward and get the relief they need so they can check out at times. In the business sense, it means checking out of the office for a break. 

This article is an excerpt from my book, Concrete Jungle, co-authored by Bob Proctor.

Visit www.strategizeandorganize.com to learn more about consulting services or to book Anne as a speaker.