TOP 10 MISTAKES TO AVOID WHEN ORGANIZING YOUR OFFICE

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Taking the time to organize your office can be very rewarding, but can at times be frustrating.  Here are 10 mistakes to avoid.

1. Buying the Newest Organizing Product:  Before purchasing, make sure you can incorporate the product into your existing processes.  A new product won’t fix underlying system-flow issues.
2. Using the Wrong Organizational Product:  Trying to cram 3 inches of paper in a worn manila folder will only cause you future frustrations.  Take a trip through your local office supply store (or company supply closet) as there are now many options available.
3. Expecting an Overnight Solution:  Developing new processes takes time, sometimes as long as 21 days to become habit!  Don’t get frustrated and try to tackle only 1 or 2 fixes at a time.  Re-evaluate a process if it’s truly not working for you.
4. Going Overboard:  An organized office should be efficient and save you time when doing your job – not causing you to spend all of your time filing!  Placing your current files in front of the folder – great.  Worrying about separating your yellow highlighters from the orange ones – don’t!
5. Not Mirroring your Electronic Files to your Paper Files:  Why learn two different systems?  Your electronic and paper files should complement each other.
6. Using Too Much Color:  Color folders should be used on your primary file categories to have the most impact.  Consider having all of your client files be green, all of your admin files be yellow, etc.
7. Creating More Paper:  Having a slick filing system makes it tempting to store every piece of information.  The more documents you store, the more likely the clutter will come back.  Keep your filing system as an active document retrieval center!  Do you need to print that email?  Do you need that 100 page product guide or will 3 pages suffice?
8. Keeping Useless Data:  Before filing, check each document (paper or electronic) and see if it even needs to be kept.  What is your office’s document retention policy?  Ask yourself, “What’s the worst thing that could happen if I throw this away?”
9. Not Staying Flexible:  Businesses are dynamic and your filing systems need to be able to change with you.  If you find that you’re filing too many documents under one category or are having difficulties retrieving information, you need to re-evaluate your filing structure.  A few tweaks (adding subfolders, renaming folders) could drastically improve your efficiency.
10. Forgetting to Maintain your Systems:  Don’t end up at square one after all of your hard work!  Purge your paper and electronic files annually, file your To-File pile, replace worn folders.

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