How to organize workspace and office time

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

All work in the office begins with their own workspace, but often people do not pay enough attention to this moment. The workspace is not only furniture and a computer, but also planning, workflow, additional tools. This article contains simple tips on how to properly organize your workplace.

It all starts from the workplace.

D. Carnegie

Work begins with the workplace and its organization. There are, of course, exceptions in the form of creative and unique individuals for whom this issue is not so important. But even they have their own system of creative disorder, even if they do not admit it. Most people work at ordinary desks in ordinary office spaces, and the following tips are intended for them.

Desktop

The right work environment tunes the mind to the right rhythm. You don't keep your house in a mess and you know exactly where and what is. It is the same in the workplace: everything should be in its place, and nothing superfluous that could distract from the main tasks.

How does it all start when you just come to work? From the desktop. And there are usually piles of papers, scattered stationery, mugs, some useless souvenir and dust on the computer. And what will be the internal state behind such a workplace? Unassembled. You, of course, will not think so, but the subconscious mind has already decided everything. Whatever reality is around, so are you. And consciousness picked up this thought, and your mood is gone.

Keep your desk tidy at all times. Start your day by dusting, adjust the lighting, write helpful information on stickers, wash your coffee cup, fill out your calendar - get yourself up and running. These simple actions will energize the work that follows.

The ideal workplace is a tool for the job, comfortable lighting, essential stationery, and simple furniture for the worker.

How to work: standing or sitting? You decide. I think that sitting is better, but you definitely need to take breaks: walk, do a little warm-up, get some fresh air, climb 2-3 floors up the stairs. My work schedule: 45 minutes - a task without interruption, a 15-minute break, then 1 hour of continuous work and 15 minutes of rest. This is how the working day is structured.

Do not forget about your own locker or archive, as each employee always has his own personal file or paper archive. You can also store personal items in the locker that you would not like to show off. Each shelf and cabinet should fulfill its function and not intersect with other elements. This will make it more convenient to work with documents and various accessories.

Electronic document management

Make backup copies of your work, documents, projects, service information stored on your work computer, and send them to the company's server or cloud storage.

How much energy and nerves people spend because of the lost information! The computer crashed, hung, someone accidentally deleted important data. Do not repeat their mistake and make backups. Don't let circumstances control you and your work.

Do not install unnecessary applications, most of the necessary operations are performed in standard software packages. If you are fluent in a certain tool for work, ask the management or the IT department to install it, justifying your effective work in it.

Another simple tip: try to stick to one thing in your electronic space. If you like Yandex services, choose them, if Google services - work with them. You will know all the strengths and weaknesses of the tools, and you will also be able to quickly set up your system in a new place. The race for fresh programs is not always justified.

At the workstation, create your personal simple electronic hierarchy. You should find any of your old documents in no time. This is especially important when you are required to urgently solve something, and you have forgotten where this information is stored.

Scan all the most important documents. A lot of work conflicts between departments arose because of some lost important paper.

Planning

Have you noticed that work sometimes turns into a mess: a bunch of tasks, conversations, meetings, checking papers. And you are spinning in this endlessly. You seem to be working, but it's hard to call it work. Behind all this, the general picture of what is happening is not visible, and this is one of the problems of modern productivity: there are actions, results are also there, but they are not very noticeable in the routine.

To avoid this, it is necessary to draw up a plan of tasks and activities for the day, week and even for a month.

Most use notebooks or diaries. Yes, this is good, but paper is "random access memory", it stores all the fluidity, and the main information is lost in the abundance of pages. A notebook or diary is already an archaic way of planning. In the diary, you do not see the whole picture of events, do not figure out when it is better to do one thing and when another, and you can also miss some important event. There is no way to pull the required data and conduct a comprehensive analysis. Imagine how many pages you have to flip through in order to collate the necessary information.

Now there are many applications and online services for organizing your working time. Believe me, this should be done if you want to work productively regardless of the situation and mood. To-do-list today is all about effective task and time management.

I use the context planning system in Outlook by Gleb Arkhangelsky. What I like about it: the simplicity and efficiency of the tool, a well-known application, the combination of calendar, tasks and mail in one information space, integration with office applications. This planning system can be trained to any employee in a short time.

Here are some tips for organizing your working time:

• Plan flexibly, in context, not rigidly in time.
• Learn to understand what's important and what's not.
• Easily part with insignificant matters.
• Appreciate the quality of the time spent, not the time itself.
• Say no to yourself and other people when necessary.
• Start your day with challenging and unpleasant tasks.
• When planning tasks and projects at work, set deadlines for them.

A powerful psychological trick is to cross out a completed task or put a tick in front of it. This will give you extra inner energy to achieve great results. You will see that everything is not in vain.

Working with mail

How to organize work with mail?

First, you need to set the operating time with it in order to reduce the number of interrupts. It is best to do this in the morning, when tasks begin to form, and in the afternoon, when you need to check how things are.

Secondly, you shouldn't answer ambiguous letters right away. You need to think about everything: the appeal, the construction of the answer, additional information. Try to keep subjectivity as low as possible. Forget about quick replies, as everyone used to do on social networks.

Thirdly, do not overload the text of the letter with information that is understandable only to the sender himself. Try to answer briefly and succinctly, weighing each word. In our digital age, this is very important: no one is interested in wading through unique inferences.

And finally, do not forget about netiquette: addressing the recipient, writing style, case information, contact details. Learn how to write a letter, analyze what you have written, and how to apply.

Additional tool

Another thing that helps make your work more efficient is the whiteboard. An indispensable tool, especially when the department is brainstorming or solving a serious problem with intermediate stages.

In my professional career, the board was an indispensable attribute of the work environment. It is also useful in terms of saving paper. You will not believe how many sheets are spent explaining your ideas and solutions.

Thanks to visual thinking (everyone has it), people can draw together on the board, explain their thoughts, and suggest the best solutions to a problem. Everyone can see and understand everything.

I would like to add that music helps me in my work. It has a positive effect on my productivity, especially when I have to work with repetitive tasks on a computer or draw up a large package of documents. In general, it is good to start the morning with positive music. But you should not turn it on for everyone, remember: you are not working alone, for someone the music will only interfere.