How to get organised for the New Year Six essential tips to boost efficiency

How many have the New Year's resolution of "sorting their life out" when in reality the most important thing they need to sort out is their desk?

So much efficiency is lost due to poor work practices or a messy desk that by simply sorting this out many people would find that they have a lot more time to spend with family and friends and can actually enjoy life a bit more.

HERE ARE FIVE TIPS THAT WILL HELP YOU GET SORTED AT WORK AND MAYBE GIVE YOU BACK AN EXTRA HOUR THAT YOU CAN GO SPEND WITH YOUR KIDS.

Tidy up the desk

Simply having an uncluttered desk can lead to better organisation and easier day-to-day working.

It's incredible how easy it is to get through the day if you don't have lots of things distracting you and if you can get to important stuff when you need it.

A simple process I go through each week is this:

1) Check what paperwork is on the desk and if it's important, action it straight away, if it's not important but needs to be kept, file it. If it's not important and doesn't need to be kept, bin it.

2) When I've completed task one, empty the desk completely, just put everything somewhere else and then clean it with a disinfectant (see the article on eating at your desk, you'll do it too) and then only return things to the desk that are absolutely necessary.

3) Have a letter tray - anything reaches your desk, pop it straight in there and action everything on Friday if not before.

Use a task manager

I have two methods:

The first is using an on-line tool called Asana that allows me to brain dump everything down into a list, but then I use a pad to write down the important tasks that I need to sort out today. As I go through the day I cross them off with a big felt pen - it's a psychological boost to see things being completed in this way.

Get into habits

Here's what I do every day:

1) Make tea (important, we won the war based on tea dontcha know!)

2) Sit and write out my task list of everything that must be done today

3) Turn off emails, phones and anything else that might distract me and start work for at least an hour without interruption

4) Check emails every hour to hour and a half

5) In the afternoon, make any phone calls necessary

Turn off emails

You'll be amazed what you can get done if you stop pandering to the time-sucker that is your email client.

You don't need to be checking mails every five minutes, the world won't end. If there's something important then people can call you (unless your phone is on silent) so don't worry about it. We've become slaves to our technology and rather than make us more efficient, it's actually ended up invading our time.

Have lunch, go for a walk

You'll be far more productive if you just get out of the office for lunch rather than continuing working.

You may think you're getting things done but you won't be concentrating as much and in the afternoon you'll probably find you get the dreaded lull and want to get your head down.

Don't try to multi-task, you can't

Nobody can multi-task, it's been proven to be impossible (according to an an article in psychologytoday.com) and in fact, trying to can make you less productive in the long run.

Instead of trying to do many different things at once, simply set aside a certain amount of time to get one thing done to its conclusion and you'll end up getting far more done during the day then you ever have before.

With so much going on in our lives these days it's absolutely essential to take time to manage what it is we do and when we do it.

It's not just in the office, but at home that we must be careful not to take on too much so we become overwhelmed with day to day living.

However, if you start by doing those few things above, you'll soon find that you have more time to do the things you really enjoy in life.

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