Do You Need An Inbox?

Yes!  Many clients I work with either don't have one, or if they do, it's misused as yet another place to stack papers they're not sure what to do with.  Some inbox tips:

• It should live on your desktop.  It doesn't matter if it's on the corner or in the center--it just needs to be within arm's reach.
• Its main purpose is for gathering papers, reminders, notes from meetings, daily mail, and other info that isn't urgent, but that needs to be processed (filed, delegated, acted upon, trashed) in some way soon. 
• You must clean it out at least once a week!  That's the hard part for most folks.  But you defeat the purpose of the inbox if you just let stuff sit there.  Discipline yourself to make time each day or so to decide what needs to be done with each item in your inbox.  You'll notice an increase in your productivity--I promise!

Inboxes can be plastic trays or wicker baskets or even the lid of a cardboard box.  Whatever will work for you--just use one!  Here are some pretty ones from www.seejanework.com .

Organize Your Notes

My goal is to help people achieve the status of working in an organized office space.  Along my journey to do so, I've noticed several habits that those who are less organized share.  One of these habits is the over abundance of notes scribbled on scraps of paper, backs of envelopes, paper napkins from lunch, sticky notes, etc.  It's no wonder that important info is lost or forgotten!  Suggestions:

• if you take notes in meetings, use one pad of paper for this (use a different sheet for each meeting) and at the end of the day read over the notes, keep the important info you need, and toss the rest
• keep a notepad on your desk to take phone messages on or use it to take notes when you're on the phone
• lots of the scattered pieces of paper I've encountered on desks have names and phone numbers on them, so maintain a list of these people so that when you have time you can add them into your contact manager and input many all at once

Be aware of how you're gathering your information and try not to write notes in several different places.  This complicates finding it again, thus making your life harder than it has to be.  Give it a try!