Get More From A Few Smart Changes

Many individuals are looking for ways to adjust their business to help them get through this challenging economic downturn. The usual approach to business growth isn’t as applicable during a rough economy, so people need to make changes.

One of the changes a business should look at in their strategy for improvement is getting better organized. And there are a number of ways that being organized can help improve a company’s bottom line.

One very important task to undertake is handling any clutter. Every minute you spend looking in piles, wondering where that document is, or being distracted from where your focus should be costs you. After all, these “minutes” do add up.

Fact is, it wastes time and money. With a business, time is money and the amount of time spent looking for a document or item costs you. So therefore an overhaul of your work area should be the number one starting point to becoming more efficient.

There’s more you can do of course in getting your work organized. Here are a few:

• Organize files into standard categories, properly labeled
• Organize financial information (bills and financial paperwork)
• Establish ways to track your bills to pay on time
• Designate a place for everything and keep everything in its place
• Set up a more efficient work space
• Have supplies at hand
• Streamline your methods of work flow and cut out unnecessary activities
• Use computer applications to automate tasks

The key is to keep it simple. The more complicated something is to do means that task needs to be organized into a more efficient task.

One example of this is how a person processes a new contact or lead. Let’s say you get someone’s business card, then you get back to the office and put that card on your desk or dump it into your phone book to enter into your contact database later. Then when you want to contact that person you’re either sorting through a number of other cards or within papers around your desk.

To streamline this process, have a card scanner where you can just quickly scan the card and it goes right into your contact database.

So yes, keep it simple. Being better organized is the road to simplicity and the ingredient for running an efficient business.

The inspiration for writing about this came from an article by Steve Strauss in USA Today, “Get organized to get more out of your business” and one by Jean Chatzky “It’s high time to get organized.”