11 Mar Time for a Spring Clean
Spring is very much in the air and for many, this can lead to the annual Spring Clean at home – but how many of you apply this to your work?
Do you often struggle to find that document, or are you a serial email keeper? A tidy and organised workspace can help with productivity, so why not spend a little time tidying your files and emails. In the world of tenders, knowing where all your documents and files are can save you valuable time throughout the process.
The best way to start is to have a goal; what is it you want to achieve? It’s very like spring cleaning your home when you tackle a room at a time – in this case sort a folder or file or inbox at a time. For those of you out there having a panic attack just thinking of decluttering, you don’t have to delete everything – although do you really need the past 10 years’ marketing emails?! In reorganising the file structure you can just make it easier to find everything.
Archiving can be a useful tool – looking at the documents that haven’t been used in a while is a good place to start and sending them to the dark basement archive storage facility of your computer. This can either be an automatic computer process or a manual one that you action, whichever you are most happy with.
Once you have archived those files that have been hiding under a layer of dust, somewhere in your ‘you never know when I may need them’ file, it’s time to put a plan together on how your file sorting will take place.
We recommend the following key points when setting up your file structure:
- Do you need a central shared file system that everyone who will need it can access?
- Set up a file structure to save generic documents, policies, accounts in.
- Agree a Management and Maintenance Plan
- Master document files
- Client files and sub file
- Think about what you name your files and folders so you can actually locate what you need in them.
Once you have a clear idea of what you want to archive and how you want to move forward, get those virtual dusters and vacuum cleaners out – and get sorting! Take it in bite size steps and don’t try and do too much in one go, you will have a great sense of pride when you compete your first goal.
