Getting Organized

One trait of an effective manager is the ability to stay organized, both with personal as well as team projects.  Good organization, the ability to properly track tasks and manage work load, are fundamental skills.  If you are not a master at these yet, have no fear: these can be learned!  Below are a variety of topics, tools and advice on how to improve your organizational skills:

Filing 

Good, old simple manila folders stored in a filing cabinet can work wonders.  Creating a simple, alphabetical filing system is easy.  Start to label your folders alphabetically with names that make sense according to the information you need to file.  All you will need are plenty of manilla folders, a decent cabinet, and a good pen or labeller.  Here are some tips that may help you to file better:

• buy a decent filing cabinet
• labelling is key; think of specific rather than vague categories for labels
• create subcategories by starting to label with a specific noun, and coupling it with another word (ie. "Sloan: 15.990", "Sloan: 15.390", etc.)
• Some people like to seperate personal files from work files.  This is a matter of personal preference, but as this filing system is meant to be your "personal library," to keep things as simple as possible, it could make sense to build one, integrated filing system.
• the same principle can be applied to your digital life.  You can easily create a hierarchical folder structure to store and file your digital docs.
• install Google search to quickly find and retrieve documents stored on your computer 
• track your files online with a simple excel sheet.  Two columns are all that's needed: file name, and file contents.  Update this document periodically.  Sometimes, after filing something (once your filing system is large enough), you might have trouble recalling where you filed a particular document.  This excel sheet can help find what you need.  (this can be done in batch processing at the end of the week)

Email - Inbox control 

Is your inbox out of control?  Do you feel like you are always trying to keep up with email?  Here's an idea: try to challenge yourself to maintain your email inbox to zero emails.  Practical advice on how to do this:

• file incoming emails once they come in
• use and apply filters intelligently - non-critical mailing lists should be filtered automatically out of the inbox
• learn to aggresively delete - many emails are not really needed - read/skim them and delete!
• reply immediately if you can reply quickly
• stop checking email every 2 minutes.   Try limiting to once every 30 minutes if possible.
• Have good spam filters - go over your spam inbox once a week to make sure no real emails were mistakenly classified as spam 

Gmail

Consider centralizing all your mail accounts with Gmail.  The best thing about Gmail is its search function...you can archive all your emails and search for them quickly and easily.  Currently, Gmail provides approximately 3 gigs of storage. 

One suggested To-Do list

 To-do lists are awesome.  There's something magical about writing down tasks (actionable tasks) on a piece of paper in list format, carry them around you, and checking them off.  Done properly, and they feed on one another, creating a virtuous cycle of organization and productivity.  Below's a suggestion for having a non-digital pdf solution (fast, simple and easy) task-holder, which works wonders if used (or carried around) consistently:

• get a small notebook you like (smaller than A4 but bigger than pocket book)
• the first page is labeled Tasks. 
• Everytime you think of an action item to do, put a date on the left hand side and write the item on one list
• reiterate as you go
• draw one line across tasks as you do them
• if you are waiting on something (reply from someone or action from someone else), mark an "X" to the far right side of the page, next to the task.  (allows for easy scanning of waiting for tasks)

Its incredibly simple, but effective.  The more you write down, the less you need to remember and waste energy thinking/storing tasks in your brain.  Try this easy solution out: your life will be less stressful and you'll be more productive!