How can I be more productive/organised at work?

[TeddyIsaHe]

I’m a month in to an incredible job. I absolutely love it. However, I was a SAHM for 2 years and before that had easy, non-pressure jobs. I’m finding the workload and how to efficiently stay on top of it a bit of a nightmare. Everything is very much paperwork based (I’m doing both events and HR) and I find myself buried under a pile of it not knowing which way is up.

What are your top tips for being organised and making a workload easier to manage?

Routine. Do things in the same order every day so nothing gets forgotten. For weekly or monthly things, get a system going where you do them on a specific day of the month.

Prioritise. Try not to get sidetracked by something that's just hit your desk, wait until you have finished the task in hand before looking at it, then decide how important it is relative to what else needs doing that day.

Emails. Don't keep checking them unless you are waiting for a reply to something really urgent. Wait, and tackle them in order (see routine above).

Write the next day’s to do list before you leave work the day before.
Only check emails at set times.

Get a planner. Try bullet journaling. List all the tasks you need to do and prioritise. There's nothing like ticking stuff off.
I've split mine into sections too. So I have a section for research notes, a section for a specific topic I need to work on and a section for ideas. I also keep my main objectives in the front to keep my mind off getting involved in crap stuff and to focus on the right stuff.

All of the above - but the main focus being not to get sidetracked. Otherwise you end up dipping around between tasks and nothin* gets done.

Pick five things, or two, or seven, put them on a postit note and aim to have completed half by lunchtime. Completely finished, so they’re off your desk. File them away and move on.

I often finish a task then get up and check the post, get some water, go to the loo or whatever, then come back to the next thing with a clearer head

Only have email program open at set times. Don’t have it open all the time to distract you

Lists. I use a notebook, kinda bullet journal style, kinda just a notebook full of notes and to do lists!

I check emails first thing and just after lunch and. I close the program in between.

At the beginning of each day I check diary and notebook, and write a list for the day.

Deadlines go in my diary, including key points ie I must have written the copy by X date for the leaflet to go to printers on Y date. Some people prefer outlook calendar for this.

Default diary - pretty much as above. Set times and days to do specific tasks. For example I check and act on my emails only every morning between 8-9 unless I know something urgent is coming through. I spend my last half hour of the day planning for the next day with a list which I tick off and anything not completed end of day gets added to next days list along with any extra work given.

Onenote (Microsoft)
I've got a note book for each project, different pages for different things and a to do page.

I read the productivity ninja book (about £5 for Kindle version and a really quick read) as I was really struggling with stress and it's helped me loads!

The email tip is great - so simple! I get massively bogged down with emails and before I know it I’ve wasted half the day.

Thanks for the book recs also.

How does everyone organise their paperwork? I have tons of the stuff just in mad piles which I ignore until I need to find something. Not exactly professional!

Have a look at the book Getting Things Done and also the 4-hour work week. The first one in particular is life changing. I sat in a course with our senior leaders for Getting Things Done and they got their emails down from 10,000 to five. Also question whether it's you who needs to do the work - can it be gone differently, by someone else or under a different time scale? Is there someone else who understands your job - ask them how they would approach this and you may gain a different perspective.

Also agree with comments about OneNote - it's fab! I don't know why more people don't use it. I also only check my emails twice a day for one hour - and by checking I mean taking action, so delegating, incubating to read another time, booking time in the diary to action or in the bin.

OneNote. I have a running to do list. You can embed emails so I file everything in Outlook as it comes in, copy relevant emails to OneNote and then effectively use OneNote as my inbox.

Plus pages for every project where I record conversations, emails, etc.

If you have loads of paperwork, and it sounds as if you do, then trays, folders, a range of post-it notes in different colours, a filing cabinet and some bulldog clips will come in handy. I also have a notice board on the wall in front of my desk that I put urgent reminders on etc.

Is there anything that you can scan in and keep on the computer instead? Then just file the paperwork away. Someone once gave me the tip that you should only ever handle a piece of paper once, and I try to follow that as much as possible.

What I do with my emails is to have a look at all of them when I've been in the office for about half an hour (I just work mornings so it will mostly be everything that arrived the previous afternoon). I delete all spam straight away as I find it, and forward anything that is for someone else to deal with. If you have a quick look at the whole lot, you will often find several about the same subject so you won't end up dealing with one thing without having read another which turned out to be relevant.

Then I start again and deal only with one category at a time. For instance, all suppliers invoices are emailed to me, so I transfer all those into an invoice folder and get them out of the way to be input later. That clears the decks a bit. Then I stop, close the emails down completely and do another routine thing. Later on I will look at enquiries and deal with those. You get the drift.

My inbox only contains emails I have to do something with. Everything else into folders.

I also move everything out of my sent box into project folders too