by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Nov 19, 2021 | Organization, Productivity, Time Management
If you work from home, your office desk may be hindering your productivity. Have you ever entered your office to find it in disarray? Or maybe you have spilled coffee or tea all over your desk?
That’s a case of having to get your home office desk organized urgently so you can get your work done.
But why wait until you spill coffee or soda all over your work?
Your Organized Home Office Desk Helps Increase Your Productivity
How you wonder? According to Forbes, the typical executive today wastes almost one month a year searching for lost information.
Imagine a whole month looking for something that if you were organized you would have saved that much time?
What would you do with a months’ time? You could actually take a vacation! Or work more and make more money and still take a 2-week vacation. Imagine that?
How to Get Your Home Office Desk Organized
- Take everything off your desk and dust it. Make it shine.
- Next only put your laptop on the desk.
- Then add items like a pen and pad near your dominant hand. If you have several pens/pencils, put them in a container and leave just one on the desk. This helps you focus more on one thing and not multi-task.
- Only keep what you need on your desk. Anything that you reach out for often or have to leave your desk for.
- Keep some open space, it helps your mind wander and be more creative. Creativity for running a business is important as you need to make changes and pivot for your success.
- Do not keep a pile of paper on your desk. Only the important few pieces.
- Next, make sure your laptop desktop itself is not cluttered.
- Keep a to-do list and schedule nearby on your office desk.
- Hang some inspirational quotes or photos on the wall of your home office.
Why Declutter?
By decluttering your office desk space, you feel better. When you feel better, you can work better and be more productive and creative.
Also start decluttering the other spaces around your home office desk. For example, drawers and shelves. Keep them simple and clean.
Next time when you enter into your office home space you will feel refreshed and ready to begin working. You won’t be thinking about all the stuff you have to clean as you work from home.
Organize the Rest of the Office
Now that you have your office desk organized, you can move on to the other areas of your room. Whether it be in the drawers or other pieces of furniture keep things to a minimum.
You may be surprised to see how much stuff you kept, that you didn’t really need. Maybe you can move some of your unneeded documents to a zip drive.
Anything to save on paper and clutter on the actual office desk and make you more productive.
Make it Your Own Space
Style your home office to your own flavor. Many may love the man-cave look for their offices and others want a more feminine touch. Whatever style makes you happy and feel good, is the style you will want to go with. Use your favorite colors for the paint, rugs, or furnishings in your home office.
Of course, feeling comfortable in your own home office will help you be more productive each and every day.
If you work off your dining room table, you may be easily distracted. You may also spend more time looking for things you need to get the tasks at hand done.
Working from a Clean Home Office Space
Now that your office is all cleaned up you will feel ready to tackle anything that comes your way. You will be able to find things quicker and get more done.
You may even be inclined to do other areas of your home to make the rest of your life more pleasant and stress-free. Having clutter can be a stressor for many people.
The less clutter you have, the fewer decisions you have to make, the less you have to look for stuff, and the less overall stressed you will feel.
You will be able to live more productively, happy, and be more successful in your business.
Guest Author Lisa Sicard
Lisa loves helping others to thrive online through Social Media, Blogging, and SEO. What good is knowledge if you cannot share it with others? She has 30+ years of experience in marketing/advertising with 9 years of experience in content marketing, social media, blogging, and SEO. Check out her latest eBook “How to Tweet and Thrive on Twitter” now on Amazon.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Oct 14, 2015 | Entrepreneur, Organization, Small Business, Toolbox
Picture this quintessential bit of information that has been picking at your brain and eating you up inside, you remember – someone on a beach with a digital tool, getting their work done while enjoying their family.
Drives you crazy, doesn’t it?
The cool breeze, the aqua green water, the white sand and some cheeky entrepreneur who is making it work! You stop and wonder; “How does she do it?”
Well, working remotely requires Systems, Tools and Technology. It’s not only possible to take a vacation, it’s doable, and within this article are the three things you need to know to make it work.
First, let’s identify a few fears here:
“No way. There’s too much to do and only I can do it.”
“My business would fall apart if I took time off.”
“Vacation? Only if I can have Wi-Fi.”
Put on your grown-up shoes and let’s roll up our sleeves and get you out of your office.
Systems:
Developing your daily operational structures ensures consistency, ease of use, and process management for yourself and those you bring on to your team as you grow. They become your auto-pilot during your absence.
Systems are the rules, policies, and procedures that your team follows and can consistently repeat as your company grows. They can be:
- Customer Support
- Inventory
- Marketing
- Accounting
- Human Resources
- Social Media
- Feedback
- On-boarding
- Meeting Procedures
- Customer Relations
While I admit, it isn’t always easy to walk away or tune out even for a short time, it is possible and you have earned it. Technology has given us 24/7 connectedness and the necessary tools to be able to step away. So, if you can marry your systems AND your tools, with your team, you can hide on an island or at least celebrate some downtime without as much guilt or worry.
Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment. – Jim Rohn
I may not always practice what I preach, but I do operate with systems, a team, and automation tools, enabling me to work from anywhere. On a 2015, 2 week trip, I visited 11 states, mountain biked in at least 7, visited majestic mountains dividing these great states, toured the longest cave system in the world and saw a part of the country that instills a real sense of America, history and the people who fought to establish our great nation.
Tools & Technology:
All of this travel was made possible BECAUSE I have systems, processes, tools, and impeccable organizational skills. I love what I do and do what I love. It’s passion, not work.
The Secret Sauce: Everyone has a few tips and tricks to share – start talking in your community, ask a VA or check with other entrepreneurs who seem to be ‘always on’.
TIP:
I think one of the best time-savers I used was shared via a client. Managing client Gmail accounts can be a hassle if you have to constantly sign in and out of Chrome. The secret sauce is that you can create different user-profiles and never have to login but just keep their Chrome account in your icon tray. I currently have 8 active Chrome browsers in my icon tray for email management, calendaring, social media, and other various client specific projects.
Along with creating the individual user profiles, I also have each client’s daily core programs and most-used apps saved in their own bookmark toolbar. I truly embrace organization and structure; maintaining files and systems for everything! This process not only saves me from needing to keep 10+ tabs open at all times but streamlines each associated platform, tool, page, or required details to operate behind the scenes for each client.
Over the years I have fine-tuned skills, tricks and techniques, as we all do. It is a growth process and so vital for your business as well. I love the tip above. I am able to save/sync client apps, bookmarks, extensions, logins, favorite sites, etc. When a client shares their profiles with me, it provides me access to all of their data and company information. I do recommend the 2-step verification as well. Security is a must for every business.
TIP:
In order to manage all of the projects and clients, my favorite project management tool is Redbooth (formerly Teambox). I feel it is THE tool to use as it is very user friendly, streamlines communications, keeps everything in one central location and provides the opportunity to upload tasks, assign deadlines and a “taskmaster”, engage in real-time communication, share files, have conversations(similar to emails) and maintain editable notes (like Google Docs). Every time there is a project activity, Redbooth sends an email notification with the details. From here, you can reply directly from your email, or you can log in to your account. The dashboard interface is straightforward, displaying the key tools you use every day to effectively manage your projects and time.
Redbooth is very robust and full-featured as they have continued to improve and enhance their offerings to make it the “go-to” app for project management. You can also schedule HD live meetings and have them immediately added to your calendar with the call details. Once your meeting is started, you can also screen share or record the meeting for future reference or for team members that weren’t able to attend.
Other Redbooth benefits:
Reporting for each workspace, calendar, tasks and users
Mobile Apps for IOS and Android
Integration with: Google Drive, SharePoint, Evernote, Office 365, Dropbox, Outlook, Gmail, MS Project
TIP:
In keeping with time management, an absolute must in the day and life of a Virtual Assistant, is time tracking. While there are so many options, some more techie than others, I prefer 2 KISS basics. This FREE stopwatch and timer and a spreadsheet. I keep this handy little tool saved in my personal browser as well as each client bookmark bar enabling me to stop, start and track the time spent on all tasks and projects. Honoring the simple and frankly, the unsophisticated tool is a time saver in and of itself. I don’t need some fancy apparatus with bells and whistles. I need accuracy and accountability. There’s a time and a place for upgraded technology.
Here is the deal, find the right resources you need to make your vacation or working remotely actually work.
Do your OWN research and find what works best for you, your business and your method of working.
I don’t believe there is one set tool, system or process that solves issues for the masses.
We learn and operate in so many different ways, left brain, right brain, hands-on, visual, and so on, that it makes strategic sense to implement your chosen tool not simply because someone tells you to, but because it works for YOU. Test and retest until you it all comes together according to your needs and preferences. Soon you too can travel with your office right in your lap as I do, but just be sure that you’ve got a designated driver.
You might even want to hire a VA to keep track of it all for you!
Over to you: please share your tips for working remotely and having a life.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Sep 24, 2014 | Content Marketing, Organization, Productivity, Small Business, Time Management
Bleary eyed and reaching for your coffee, you boot up your computer and start your daily diet of content consumption. It is a filling nourishment of words, intel, fired up neurons and brain overload. Or at least it can be. Personally, I can spend hours reading all of the articles on social platforms, news aggregators, daily digests, emails and newsletters. Sometimes I think my head will explode.
Research demonstrates that we take in five times as much information as we did 30 years ago, raising huge challenges to organize it all.
We are drowning in data.
In a 2010 LexisNexis study, 62% of workers felt as though their quality of work suffered at times because they couldn’t sort through the information they needed fast enough.
There is so much to digest and learn. I could be bookmarking and saving content all day long. There are hundreds of talented bloggers and business owners sharing their incredible knowledge of tools, tips, recommendations and experiences. It can be overwhelming. Think of how many times you get sucked in to the black hole searching, clicking, and redirecting. It’s a vortex.
How do you manage all of the content? There are tools to organize your content or to help you search and save but you also need to decide what you are going to do with the information. Daniel Levitan, author of “The Organized Mind,” says “Whenever we feel overwhelmed by everything we need to keep track of in life, we talk about wanting to get organized.”
You’ve chosen your sources, thought leaders and industry favorites to follow and “study” in your own college auditorium of higher learning. That’s what it sometimes feels like for me and without the outrageous tuition costs.
What is the purpose? Business or personal? How does it apply to your business? Customers? Colleagues?
What are your content goals?
- Self-education
- Curation
- Repurposing
- Inspirational
- Research
- Love of reading
If you’re like most of us, you have a business to run and can’t spend every waking moment culling and sifting through information. It’s a full time job. Who has the time to sit and read all day when you are trying to live the entrepreneurial dream?
Use filters and keywords help to refine your searches.
This will help to save time and improve your overall content management. If you have some systems in place, it will be much easier to sort through all of the posts you want to read and combat your information hangover.
Researchers tend to agree that it’s not the volume of information that is the problem; it’s our inability to organize and process it all without experiencing “information overload, or what neuroscientists like to call “cognitive overload. Saga Briggs
| Research |
Organize |
| Social Media |
Evernote |
| BuzzSumo |
Readability |
| Scoop.it |
Spreadsheets |
| Tagboard |
Swipe files |
| RSS feeds |
Bookmarks |
| ContentGems |
Files and folders |
| Hootsuite Content Feature |
One Note |
| Flipboard |
Feedly |
| Alltop |
Google Drive |
| Inbound.org |
Dropbox |
| Biz Sugar |
Pocket |
| Topsy |
Ubernote |
| Feedly |
Powerpoint |
Design a system that works for you to enhance your time management and productivity as well as minimize on the extreme overload of data and what to do with it all. A method to your madness is guaranteed to keep you on track and focused. Systems and processes are the architectural structure of your success and productivity.
Establish some routines; otherwise you hit a wall, letting things go and opportunities are forfeited. The routines could be time limits or specific times you will be searching, saving and filing. Time block when you will surf. If you discover something important during the day, “save” it somewhere to revisit later. Don’t let it be a distraction and take you away from your current task at hand.
Decide what to keep or implement NOW based upon it’s perceived impact on your goals. Prioritize to your needs. Is it something you must have or must know? If so, how soon will you be needing it? Use your organizing tools to keep track of the data, being mindful of how you will use it and when. Some articles may have a more immediate use while others are purely for reference. You decide, but take action.
Declutter: remember to go through your folders or storage options so they haven’t blossomed into an overload of organized data. Purge the old to make room for the new. There’s no sense in just letting everything pile up and multiply as that will defeat the purpose of your systems.
How do you challenge your content zombie? What helpful tools can you suggest?
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Sep 10, 2014 | Content Marketing, Organization, Productivity, Social Media
How many times have you started your day feeling a little discombobulated? Out of sorts or otherwise, a hot mess?
Maybe your alarm didn’t go off, you’re missing a sock, can’t find your keys or worse, your coffee pot died! Oh yes it did. It’s not even a Monday! This is a horror and seems to set the tone for the rest of the day.
You throw up your hands and opt for the bedhead look. If you’re like me, you might even have a little crazed Medusa look going on. No, I’m not doing an HOA or SKYPE video call with you.
HOWEVER, you cannot bring this uncoiffed mentality into your social media marketing world. Oh it is so tempting to just jump on board and start posting, commenting and singing your song. Who cares about the different platforms, best times to post, what to share, syndication sites, building relationships and the whole ménage of social etiquette, tips, tools and suggestions? Right?
A little chaos and messy hair feels good.
Close your eyes for me. Just for a second. Now shake your head from side to side. Flip your hair up and down. Run your hands through it. Yeah, you men too. Okay, gradually open your eyes. Doesn’t it just feel a little freeing to let go?
Okay, you’re done. Come back down in your chair and focus!
If you’re like most small business owners, you think social media is just something you do versus a marketing tool that you MAKE time for. Remember, the majority of your customers and prospects are online and consuming information every day. If you aren’t online and making time for social media, you can rest assured that your competition is.
I will tell you this: YOU do NEED a social media strategy; a plan of attack. Nothing is accomplished by haphazardly flitting around tapping a few keys here and there. This goes beyond just the SMM goals for your company. You need more than that.
Focus on strategy, not tips and tools. It begins with your audience, their objectives, who are you connecting with and what they need from you. Pam Moore, CEO of Marketing Nutz
You should outline a daily plan for each of your social profiles, including goals for each one.
A daily routine will help to keep you focused and productive, otherwise, you will be spinning the hamster wheel of frustration. It is already so difficult to keep up with everything, figure out social media AND operate your business. Who has time for all of this??
Social media can be a tremendous time suck. Many business owners spend 12-20+ hours a week maintaining their online presence. Do you really have this kind of time? Can you afford to step away from the core of your business to search, write, edit, post, comment, share and otherwise be seen, be heard and engage?
Again, your routine and time management will keep you from wasting needless unplanned hours. Everything has a road map or a blueprint. Create one and stick to it.
Simply posting or tweeting a random thought without a strategy behind it is a recipe for disaster, and a complete waste of time. Rebekah Radice
Let’s assume (and I do hate this word):
- You have defined your SMM goals? Yearly? Monthly? Weekly? Daily?
- The tactics you will use to achieve them
- Understand your audience, their needs and their most used platforms
- You maintain a content or editorial calendar
- You search and curate content to meet the needs and questions of your audience
- You write weekly rich and valuable blog posts
One through six are the bare naked basics, part of your standard workflow.
Your daily schedule can make you or break you. If you find yourself with a knotted nappy head then you should probably revisit what you do every day and how deeply you sometimes get dragged into the abyss. You should be using time tracking tools or those that limit your website use, but that is a whole other post. Simply put, discipline yourself.
Ready. Set. Go.
- Outline your SMM platforms, include the URLs and logins
- Include the dates/times you will post on each.
- Type of post (examples): URL, quote, image, reshare, educational
- Create lists and groups in each channel of thought leaders, colleagues, friends or other important people in your network that you follow, engage with or want to share their content
- Gather a list of the RSS feeds of industry blogs or those VIPs above enabling you to read, share and discuss their content
- Curate information from the above as well as content that mirrors/supports your company products and services, buyer’s needs, drivers and pain points
- Search industry keywords and trending topics on sites like Triberr, scoop.it, buzzsumo, tagboard, Twitter search, topsy, paper.li, or pragmatic.com
- Find and implement time saving tools to curate and schedule content
- Automate: schedule some of your daily content
- Retweet, share and comment on posts
- Create relationships: engage in meaningful conversations (NEVER automate the personal touch. NEVER)
- Create relationships: yes I repeated myself because this is worth repeating. Don’t just shout out some content and run away. That isn’t social. Not by any means. If you want to see and feel a return then be personable not a conveyor belt of URLs.
- Follow your routine. Set aside time each and every day to accomplish these social media tasks, at a minimum. Even jump on at least twice a day to manage your digital space. Schedule this time on your calendar like you would any other appointment
- Most importantly: Shake hands. Smile. BE HUMAN. While cliche, be social, don’t do social if you hope to see any type of payoff.
Remember social media isn’t an overnight million dollar sensation. It’s almost a lifestyle. An investment. It takes time, nurturing, honest engagement, understanding and a hell of a lot of patience.
You’ve got this and with a little help from a few tools and perhaps a virtual assistant (Ace), you can manage a successful social media plan AND operate your business.
If you’re tired of doing it all or not having enough time in the day to do much of anything, let alone pour a fresh cup of coffee, simply click on the Contact Us button and we can talk.
Come on… it’s easy. You deserve a little sanity. A little hair product for a more coiffed look. We’re here to help YOU.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Jul 16, 2014 | Organization, Small Business, Time Management
We have all heard that time and again, but it holds true. If you live and work in disorganization, your mindset and output will reflect your surroundings. Sure, we have some disorder or “organized piles” of stuff, but when there is overload, it overflows.
Clutter influences the way you work and the way you live. It impacts your brain. Learn to effectively manage versus just restyling the mountains of possessions, papers, contracts, or whatever lurks in your office or home. Streamline your physical and digital environment for success and focus.
“A recent survey says a disorganized workspace can lead to decreased productivity and unprofessional behavior.” Inc Magazine.
When you create a more structured environment you become more efficient and effective. You are no longer scrambling to locate important papers, files, emails or even your keys. Your time management increases as does your personal and professional productivity. Your setting is not just about physical space but mental as well. If you reside in chaos or mayhem, it does transmit into your work habits and daily living.
Your surrounding clutter competes for your attention, distracting your focus and thought process. I personally must have a clean and organized environment or I will only be thinking of what may be in the sink or if laundry needs folding. Everything has a place and it must be there when I work. Sure, a little OCD but I run my business the same way.
“When your environment is cluttered, the chaos restricts your ability to focus. The clutter also limits your brain’s ability to process information. Clutter makes you distracted and unable to process information as well as you do in an uncluttered, organized, and serene environment.” Princeton University
According to the National Association of Professional Organizations, paper clutter is the No. 1 hindrance for most businesses. Some studies conclude that the average person wastes 4.3 hours per week searching for papers, which adds stress and frustration to the workplace while reducing concentration and creative thinking. Clutter creates chaos, untidiness and ineffectiveness in every aspect your life and has the great potential significantly influence your personal productivity.
When personal productivity declines, every aspect of your life will be impacted.
Fired up and ready to reclaim your productivity?
- Set aside time weekly to manage and organize information
- Clean out your inbox
- Use cloud storage
- Put things in their proper place when you are finished – don’t merely move away. Put it away
- Always organize your desk at the end of the day
- Establish routines for clearing the mind overload
- If you must file, then do it. Don’t let items sit on your desk, counter or inbox. It is disrupting
- Don’t keep things that aren’t necessary or vital to your existence. Aunt Betty’s tattered hair ribbon won’t garner money on on the open market. Loving memories last longer
- “More” doesn’t mean more – it translates into jumble and disorder which means distractions. Clear off counter tops and desk space so you can function.
- Donate to charity
- When you bring in one new item, throw out two
- Work on one room at a time until it “feels” good
- If you haven’t used or viewed it in 6 months, do you really need it?
- Know that your value is not your stuff. It does not define you
- Create deadlines to ensure you stick to your toss it and organize program
- Once you have cleaned and decluttered a room or space, maintain it
Decluttering and clearing out the chaos, both physically and spiritually will help you gain clarity toward a more productive life. Make the time to invest in yourself.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Jun 11, 2014 | Organization, Time Management
Feeling a sense of overwhelm and chaos during your day? Think about your time management and organizational skills. If you do not manage your time or keep things in their place, this may generate undue stress in your life and diminish productivity. You’ve all been there and felt the weight of the day pressing down hard as the clock keeps ticking away. Things are piling up. You feel as though you are being productive but in actuality, you are spinning the wheels and only putting out fires or moving from one thing to the next without truly accomplishing anything meaningful.
The reason time management gadgets and systems don’t work is that these systems are designed to manage clock time. Clock time is irrelevant. You don’t live in or even have access to clock time. You live in real time. Joe Matthews, Don Debolt, Deb Percival
Hitting the panic button, you hop on the track of overdrive, further increasing the craze. It can be an endless cycle only causing further anxiety and frustration.
STOP and slow down. It’s time to assess the situation, your goals, and desired outcomes.
Examine your project and task list. What does it look like to you?
Are there real deadlines or did you create your own crisis with personally imposed limits?
I know I have done this, but at the end of the day, I realized, with an AH-HA moment, that I did it to myself with self-imposed deadlines. Not every single thing is a must-do at this very moment. If you begin to try and tackle every sticky note, your focus and efforts are diminished. Your efficiency is decreased leaving you with a sense of dread for the next day. The next list.
“Time management” takes discipline and commitment. There are many hindrances to time management but they all relate back to how you regulate your life and productivity levels. It is a matter of the daily choices you make and how you set your priorities. If something is that important to you, then you will get it done; otherwise, you will make excuses. Your success depends on getting the most out of each day.
Task Management Tips:
- What are the priorities? The absolutes that must be done today?
- Triage those by order of importance.
- How many of these items must ONLY you do or can you delegate any of them?
- After you determine these first three, then create your action steps for each.
- Breathe again and take a few minutes to realize you can do this.
- Jump into the fire and set a timer, giving yourself 30-60 minutes of dedicated focus (At the ping of the timer, take a short break).
- Tune out distractions.
- Disable notifications: Stay away from Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and text messages – whatever your nemesis may be at this moment. You have work to do that requires 100% of your brainpower without multi-tasking.
“You cannot run at full throttle when applying your mindset to all of the different things running through your head. Focusing is the key to manifesting your desires.” – Stephen Richards
Thinking in terms of real-time actions and your goals for the day will help to ensure you better manage yourself and your time. Creating your routines, processes, and systems will keep you on task and being productive; otherwise, the day may seem like a tornado of activity with a shattered foundation and half done To-Do list. Your business can’t operate at this level and neither can you. Get a handle on your task management and revel in an environment of enhanced productivity.
What keeps you sane? Sound off and share your tips on managing your To-Do lists and projects.
