How To Get Digitally Organized

Keeping yourself organized, in both your personal and professional lives, can be a difficult daily task and an ongoing struggle. After over six months you’d think we would have mastered this, especially since our office is our home; or is our home our office? Since the start of COVID-19, everyone has had to make lifestyle changes. This includes a shift from physical to digital client management for businesses.

It’s safe to say that maintaining our personal relationships is not an easy task, especially when you are keeping up with your clients and communicating with your team members at the same time. Staying organized and on top of things all day every day can be stressful and overwhelming. Here are some tips to help you organize your digital self. These tips largely apply to client communications while balancing your professional and personal lives.

 

Prep Your Calendar

Digital calendars are one of the most effective and accessible tools that you can use. Preparing your calendar is vital for productivity and time management for you and your clients.

  • Use monthly calendar views – Whether your calendar is online or on paper, using a monthly calendar view better stimulates your brain and can help you to achieve a more polished lifestyle. You can view an entire month, allowing you to see your goals and deadlines that are right around the corner.
  • Add a pop of colour – Colour coordination can help you categorize your life in terms of priority, personal, or professional appointments. Highlighting or using different coloured pens can also assist in organizing your life. For example, you can quickly identify your client meetings or month deadlines. However, you must be sure to limit your colour coordination. Using 1-3 colours is a good way to simplify your organization and avoid confusion.
  • Always update – Take the time, daily or weekly, to update your calendar. This will help you stay organized, on time, and up to date.
  • Do a software refresh of your digital calendar so that you are always getting the most out of it. You can easily manage your entire personal and professional life within your digital calendar: schedule meetings, set alerts, reminders, and much more.
  • Here at Faulhaber, we use Microsoft Teams. It is an amazing tool that helps us to stay organized and connected.

 

This helpful link can help you learn how to use scheduling management for your calendars: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/schedule-an-appointment-or-meeting-1199a77d-caa8-4f99-ac24-dfa5392b6be9

 

Organize Those Folders

Whether your files are on your desktop or a shared drive, we all know how quickly work files can become disorganized. It can become a maze with folders within folders and finding anything becomes impossible. Sometimes simplicity is the key.

  • Do not create too many folders – Keep it simple. Organize your folders by client, task, or by categories and actions. This way you can see everything you need using only a few folders.
  • Take time to sort – Folders can change everything. By going through your files regularly you can determine what is still useful and what is collecting dust, like the Lunch and Learn PowerPoint I had on my computer from 2012.

 

 

Polish Your Inbox

Getting 10% off for signing up for Best Buy newsletter seemed like a good idea at the time. Now, it is just a distraction. Decluttering and polishing your inbox can be comforting and can help you to quickly identify priorities.

 

  • Manage your inbox – Your inbox can do more than you realize. You can manage your inbox to automatically assign emails to your folders. You can colour coordinate emails by client or coworker and even assign a colour to a certain keyword.
  • Hit delete – Remove any unneeded emails and unsubscribe from those spam accounts. Deleting unnecessary emails also helps reduce your carbon footprint and can help your computer software to run more efficiently.
  • Keep your email private – Having more than one email address can be beneficial. Keep your work and personal email separate, so you don’t have to see the latest deals pop up clouding your client emails and distracting you from the task at hand.

 

Here are some helpful links to help you learn how to use Outlook’s organization tools:

 

Clear Your Vision

Being able to see the bigger picture and the end goal for your day is key to helping you stay on top of your client and team needs. Organizing your search tabs and desktop is key to keeping your digital self in the entrepreneurial mind.

  • A clean desktop – Try to not save every document on your desktop. Keep your desktop as clear as possible. This ensures that you know where your tools are so you can access them quickly when needed.
  • Organize – Organizing your folders and inbox will go a long way in helping you to de-clutter your desktop.

Remember your end goal. Organization is about making every facet of your life, as simple and accessible as possible. This pandemic has pushed everyone into a new state of normal and everyone, in some way, has had to adapt to a new digital life. Being challenged by this quick advancement of being dependent on technology is not intermittent. A top priority is learning how to adjust to positively impact your personal and professional life. When you can’t figure out where to start, ask yourself; what do your clients want to see from you? What digital organization tools can you use to show your clients and teammates that you are prepared to provide a customized approach for each client even during unique situations?

You can use this particular circumstance to your advantage by developing a more organized digital life. Communicate with your team members, clients, and supervisors to discuss how you as an individual and a team can leverage these skills more effectively. Communication is vital to organizing your digital self. Since our day to day interactions have changed, organization is more important than ever.

 

Were these tips helpful? Sound off on our social @faulhabercomm.