There are few things as disruptive to a small business office as all the clutter that just seems to keep piling up. You will usually find hard copy files, a week’s worth of mail, and even those small notes you write to yourself so that you don’t forget to do something extremely important.
The only problem is, you can usually remember that you made a note, now where is it under that pile of stuff? As a matter of fact, where does all this junk belong?
There is no telling how some of these things got laid on your desk or at other inconvenient places around the office, but that isn’t as important at the moment as the fact that all the clutter is interfering with the work you have at hand. So then, what can be done about it?
Here are three tips that should have you find a better system in no time at all.
1. Stop with All the Snail Mail!
Do you even read half of the mail that is delivered every day of the week?
Chances are that much of it is marketing that no one wants to take the time to read anyway, so there it sits. Did you know that you can buy a virtual mailbox from a reputable mailbox service like PhysicalAddress.com? Besides helping to immediately rid your office of all the clutter due to so much unsolicited mail, virtual mail services can also help to prevent criminals from accessing any of your company’s financially sensitive information such as bank statements and customer account files you no longer need.
Once you’ve purchased your virtual address and changed all the ‘contact’ information on all your accounts and on your website, all that mail should cease. Mail is almost always the number one culprit responsible for clutter.
That’s a given.
2. Start Scanning All Those Files Today
While you don’t necessarily want all your customer’s financial information stored on your computer or even in the Cloud, you also don’t want all that information tossed in the garbage where it can be found. It is suggested that you assign someone to scan every document in every file and then dispose of the files. There are two things to keep in mind here.
Firstly, always shred those documents well before disposing of them. Secondly, don’t save the scanned files to your computer but rather on an external hard drive that you don’t leave connected to your computer at night. It is vital that you do everything in your power to keep your business’s and your client’s sensitive financial information as private as possible, and this is how you do it.
3. Meet with Your Web Maintenance Team
So that you will stop getting USPS mail, you will want to have your web maintenance team go over your website with a fine toothcomb, so to speak. Make sure that any reference to your physical location is changed online so that criminals can’t find your office location to sift through your trash to gain access to those documents you are working so hard to safeguard. Yes, it helps to end the clutter but not protecting them is even more disruptive than being the victim of theft.
A Bonus Tip
As one last tip, let’s call it a bonus, it may be time to bring in an interior decorator to help you reorganize your office so that future clutter can be avoided. It’s simple things like clearing every surface of things that have no purpose. Most are not even decorative! The point is, once you’ve rid your office of all that clutter, you will want to redesign it so that all that clutter will not reappear next week. Isn’t it nice working in an office where you can finally find your own computer station once again? That’s the best of all – as far as your boss is concerned anyway!
