5 Organizing Tips to Stay on Task While You Work

October 1st, 2011 Office, Paper & Productivity

Files for Office Organization

Have you ever had a project that needed to be completed but you kept getting sidetracked and felt like you were spinning your wheels? It can be very frustrating, especially if you’re working under a deadline or someone is waiting for you so they can complete their portion of the project.

If you work from your home office, like I do, you may have an abundance of distractions. When you are at home it’s easy to see the things that need to be ‘done’ around the house such as laundry, sweeping, errands, etc. Staying focused at home has it’s own real challenges. So, here are 5 organizing tips to help you stay on task so you can get those projects whipped out!

Organizing Tip #1: Purge paper and get it down to the paper and files you truly need. This will mean less to wade through to get to your work.

Organizing Tip #2: Clearly label your files, you can’t beat the clean look of labels made from a label maker. This will allow you and others in your office to locate files more easily.

Organizing Tip #3: Keep a pad of paper next to your computer to jot down notes about other tasks, lists or ideas that pop into your head. This will prevent you from getting off task by changing gears and doing something else. It will also ease your mind that you won’t forget about these other tasks.

Organizing Tip #4: Schedule critical tasks directly into your planner to ensure that you are scheduling enough time to get them done. Critical tasks may be tasks that are connected with deadlines or financial consequences. When you have them in your schedule, it will help you say no to other demands on your time.

Organizing Tip #5: Avoid interruptions while working on your critical tasks. There’s pretty much no way you can avoid interruptions during your work day, so just focus on at least 1-2 hours of time without checking email, instant messages or texts and let your voicemail do the work for you. It’s amazing what you can knock out when you limit interruptions for at least a portion of your day.

Use these office organizing tips to stay on task and if you’d like to read more about trying out organizing systems, please stay with me here!