Mastering the art of organisation, time management and administrative efficiency is often cited as the key to being successful. However, it’s often overlooked or forgotten about in the hustle and bustle of daily life. Combine this with how quickly things change and move on, we often find ourselves reacting to situations instead of being prepared.
But, what if you knew how or had some handy tips to make a start? You’re in luck! In this article, we’ve shared some of our quick, actionable tips to help you streamline your day-to-day. From decluttering your workspace to utilising digital tools, we’ve got you covered.
Let’s dive in and unlock the secrets to a more productive and efficient workday.
Organisation
Who doesn’t love that feeling when there is finally a place for every little thing and you know exactly where to find what you’re looking for? If you’re like us, you might find that getting things in order is a satisfying process!
- Declutter Your Workspace – Did you know? A clean and organised workspace can help to improve focus and increase confidence and productivity.
- Use Digital Tools – There are hundreds of apps and tools available these days. We like to use tools such as Buffer, Cal, Canva and Trello – these help to manage calendars, reminders, tasks, social media content and more.
- Create a Filing System – You’ll want to create filing systems for both physical and digital documents, how you do this is up to you. We like to organise digital documents into folders, often starting with the top-level folder as the client name and then other folders within their file, so we can easily locate items relevant to them.
- Prioritise Tasks Daily – Spending the first few minutes of the day looking through your work queue and identifying high-priority tasks will help to give you a focus. Combine this with digital tools like Trello to make this easier to see at a glance.
Time Management
A phrase we’re all familiar with, but what does it mean? It’s simply a fancy way of saying, use your schedule in the most effective way possible; for businesses, it’s a way to enable workers to get more work done, to a higher standard in less time. Once you’ve mastered the skill, you’ll be able to do (almost) anything.
- Clear Goals – Define targets for time-frames, i.e. daily, weekly, monthly. Make sure that they are realistic, specific and achievable; you wouldn’t go from never having baked, to baking a tier wedding cake in a day, but, you might be able to learn and purchase the fundamental ingredients in that time. Hold yourself accountable at the end of the day. If you didn’t achieve the goal, think about why and address that.
- Use Time Buffers or Blocks – If you know you have a large project to work on that will require a lot of your focus and energy, block out that time in your schedule, and make yourself unavailable during those periods.
- Avoid Procrastination – No single person can avoid procrastination entirely, we get that! However, you can help to reduce the likelihood of distractions by breaking jobs into smaller chunks, this makes them seem less overwhelming, gives you a sense of achievement and keeps you engaged with the task for longer.
Administrative Best Practises
A good and effective administrator is one of the most valuable things any business can have. There’s a good reason why many admin employees are often the ‘go-to’ person in the room; they are effective, in the know and understand the importance of their role. As a general rule, good admins should follow at least the below practices…
- Communicate Effectively – verbalise expectations, instructions and updates to team members, clients and stakeholders.
- Document Everything – By keeping detailed records of communications, meetings, decisions, project progress and more, you avoid any future misunderstandings! (Store it in the new filing system you created from the organisation section above!)
- Automate Repetitive Work – Make the most of automation tools and techniques to improve routine processes and efficiency. Data Entry can become dull quite quickly, but automate it and suddenly you’ve gained some time back.
- Stay Informed – Don’t be afraid to try out new tools and methods of working. Keeping in the know of what’s new, means you can adapt ways of working to incorporate better methods with ease… change isn’t always a bad thing!
Remember, these tips can be adapted to suit your specific needs and preferences. We mentioned in the previous article (Maximising Productivity) that consistency is always key. The more you work to apply these practices, the more likely you are to see a change… good luck!