How to Organize Your Small Business

By Nellie Akalp
Originally Published by Small Business Trends | January 12, 2014

An organized business is a productive business. You may not consider yourself blessed with natural organizational skills, but now is the perfect time to get your business and work space organized.

Below are 10 tips to help you do that and get on track…

Purge Your Office

Even if you don’t mind a little mess and dust, too much clutter can add to daily stress and chaos. Clutter exists because we think that everything is important. With the new year, toss out whatever is outdated, no longer relevant or a duplicate.

For example:

• Recycle the broken electronics you may have stashed in a closet.
• Delete all those old voice messages.
• Donate anything you don’t need or use.
• Keep the basics and anything you’ve used in the past year; all else can go.

When your workspace is clean and uncluttered, you’ll enjoy spending time at your desk and won’t waste time searching through junk or moving piles around.

Organize Your Paper Files

One study found that the average person wastes over 4 hours per week searching for papers. Go through your filing cabinets and shred anything that’s out of date or no longer relevant to your business.

If you’re worried you might one day need four-year old notes from a client project, then scan the originals and throw out the paper files to make more room.

Ditch Paper Receipts

Considering the IRS accepts electronic copies of receipts, there’s really no reason for you to continue hanging on to all those tiny paper slips from restaurants, taxis, office supply stores, etc.

Find a receipt management scanner or app for your smartphone (such as Neat Receipts) and make sure your solution lets you export data to whatever expense reporting/accounting app you use.

Use the Cloud for Storage and Sharing

If you haven’t done so already, start using cloud-based tools to share and save documents. For example, Google Drive lets you store up to 15GB for free, while giving clients or colleagues access to collaborate. Other tools include Dropbox and Box.

By housing files in the cloud, you can help clean up your personal storage, as well as save valuable time spent emailing documents back and forth when collaborating with others.

Tame Your Inbox

If your email inbox has become a catchall for every email you’ve received over the past years, it’s time to clean house. It is possible to manage your email inbox so you only see the messages you still need to deal with and everything else is neatly archived for safe keeping. Start with a clean slate by…[MORE]

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To read the entire article, visit the Small Business Trends website, via: 10 Tips For Organizing Your Small Business This Year