How To Be Organized At Work

What are your tips for being organized at work?

My rule is clear your desk. Work on one thing at a time. A messy desk is a messy mind. In this day and age we have inboxes, computers, telephones, a few cell phones sometimes on the desk at the same time, our calendars, our personal stuff -- clear your desk. I equate that with clearing your mind. Do one thing at a time. If you are looking at one thing on your desk and you work on that, you finish that, and then you go on to the next thing, you will be far more productive and far more accurate, when you just turn your attention to one thing at a time. Whatever things you need to do, write them down. When you write them down two things happen. A) You relieve your mind of all the jumbo, the mental noise that I call, the things that run around in our minds that keep us from sleeping, that keep us from being productive, that make us anxious, that stress us out; if you write it down, trust that it is there on the paper and a funny thing that happens is that if you stop and have a cup of coffee, let us say, you go into the break room or wherever you are and you have your five minutes to yourself, you can now look at what you put on the paper, you can organize it in such a way that allows you to prioritize your day and then I think this is a feel good benefit is that every time you do something you get to cross it off. It is instant gratification that makes you feel like you have accomplished something and very few of us realize how much we actually accomplish in the course of one day. If you try writing it down, start off your day with a cup of coffee and just put it all down on paper, by the end of the day, you will have accomplished probably 10 or 15 things that you weren't even aware of and that in itself makes you feel great by the end of the day.