Snow Season No Longer Means Slow Season

Not too long ago, the Monday before Thanksgiving till the Monday after New Year’s was considered the slow season. Office-centric businesses could clean-up files, organize the office and strategize about the coming year. Those have now gone the way of “Remember When” tales.

With all of the advances in technology, we are enjoying the benefits of a robust business development season. This makes for planning a busy new year. It also means that some of the important housekeeping tasks get forgotten. As my New Year’s resolution, here are three ideas I am going to try in order to stay more organized:

1. Filing – It is so easy to rush from project to project, completing client-focused activities, and never properly putting away that which is completed. Cindy fondly reminisces of the days pre-computer everything and the power of well-maintained job jackets. My resolution is to file on the go when possible, or at least not leave each day until the filing is done.
2. The Dreaded Time Sheets – Even harder is logging time and activity details as they happen. James at Articulon is king of getting this done, because he started doing it day one. I am going to try and follow his example and never leave each day before my time sheet is completed.
3. Deleting – My e-mail inbox currently has 11,512 messages. Only a dozen or so need immediate action, and no more than 50 ever need to be touched again. I have sub-folders for each of my clients, vendors and internal contacts. Every quarter, I try to come in on a Saturday to clean it up. I go through and do bulk shifting to place all the emails where they belong. If I can apply the same discipline of Filing and Time Sheets to Deleting, I will have bought myself a whole Saturday away from the office and have a manageable inbox of to-dos.

 
These small steps may not completely eliminate the need for a slow season. However, I suspect they will go a long way to peace-of-mind year round. With clean up done, or at least quicker, we can focus the couple brief slow day on strategy and creatively thinking about our company the same way we think about our clients. I will let you know if these are resolutions that can stick.

Happy Holidays Everyone!