Career Development

Work organization tips to improve your productivity

admin • 17 Sep 2023

Missing deadlines, forgetting relevant information and even not attending important meetings. These are some of the consequences of a lack of organization at work. But how to avoid these problems? 

The first thing is to understand the importance of organizing the work environment and then work on some steps towards the efficiency of your work. Want to see how? Follow our post with work organization tips! You will see that it is not that difficult to keep control of your work routine.

How important is it to stay organized at work?

Lack of organization is a real problem in the workplace. Keeping your colleagues waiting because you are late for an important meeting, not being able to find the document or forgetting to make your deliveries within the pre-defined time will undermine your reputation in the workplace . Therefore, it is very important to stay organized!

And it's not just your professional reputation that's at stake; Getting organized can also have a positive impact on your health and well-being. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), poor work organization can be a source of work-related stress.

That's right: if you don't organize your deliveries very well, don't have adequate time management and even easily lose documents, this sequence of factors can increase your risk of stress and other work-related illnesses.

Still not convinced of the relevance of the organization? Let’s look at some more benefits of ensuring an orderly work routine:

• increases productivity;
• reduces your stress levels;
• makes you present a more professional approach to colleagues and clients;
• improves punctuality;
• helps you meet your deadlines more easily.

7 tips on how to stay organized at work

Now that you know the benefits of maintaining an organized work routine, how about knowing how to put it into practice?

Even if you are not naturally the most organized person in the world, you can, with some practical strategies, gradually improve your organization at work, resulting in higher quality and punctual deliveries. See how:

1. Identify and set realistic goals

One of the first stages to become more organized is determining your goals. You may prioritize chores to accomplish your goals by defining reasonable goals.

To start, divide your goals by time: annual, monthly and even weekly. You can also separate them into categories such as career, finance, family, personal and health.

2. Create to-do lists

There are days when the work routine is so heavy that you don't even know where to start, right? In this case, the tip is to make a list of what to do that day, in order of importance, and then cross off what has already been done.

But let's say that the chaos in the work routine is long-term. No problem, the suggestion is the same: make lists of deliverables by day/week/month of the year.

If you were unable to meet the deadlines , keep a record of the reasons for the delays. This information will be relevant to measure future new schedules.

3. Use an agenda

If you have ever forgotten to go to a meeting or submit a report by the deadline, raise your hand! It sounds silly, but it makes all the difference to have a calendar where you write down (and block) your time to meet a certain commitment.

The diary note works as a mental trigger for you to remember your tasks. Take this test for a week and see how much harder it will be for you to forget your assignments.

Suggestion: prefer virtual calendars, so co-workers can easily see when to schedule meetings with you, without the need to ask for dates to schedule this chat. This makes everyone's life easier.

4. Differentiate priorities and urgencies

You're overwhelmed with tasks and are unsure of where to start. These three standards must be used to monitor duties for anyone trying to establish a more ordered routine at work:

• top priority;
• medium priority;
• low priority.

5. Focus

Using your cell phone, answering emails and paying attention to the virtual meeting, all mixed together, is a recipe for chaos. You need to stay focused on just one activity if you want to reach the end of the day with your deliveries on time.

6. Use management software

Although becoming more organized may seem like a very complicated task, you don't have to do it alone, right?

Nowadays, there are many useful apps that make project management easier, like Asana and Monday, for example. Don't be afraid to try a few until you find the one that best suits your needs.

7. Collaborate with others

Collaboration can be an overlooked organizational skill both in the office and at home. Not only will this allow you to complete tasks more efficiently, but by gaining an outside perspective, you can gain new tools and strategies to become more productive.

8. Delegate tasks

One of the quickest ways to lose your sense of organization is to bury yourself in too much work. That's why knowing how to delegate tasks is essential to staying organized, both personally and professionally.

Delegation is the transfer of a task from you to someone else. To start delegating work, first look at your to-do list and decide which items can be delegated. Identify the best person for the job and clearly communicate all instructions as well as the desired outcome.