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Articles
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Tips to get you organised and fastracked
Written by Adrian Caruso, CEO/Master Business Coach of TA Fastrack
It must be that time of year again.
My email inbox is overweight, there is a lengthy list calls to return,
trees of paperwork, messy filing, clients to service, marketing projects
to start, staff have emotional issues and people tell me that they wanted
to meet with me 5 minutes ago.
Sound familiar?
Like most travel business owners, managers and consultants we are all
busy, busy, busy and go, go, go at the same time. February is the time
when the January goal making rush is over and it is time to get serious
about achieving them in the next 11 months that are left before we make
excuses as to why we didn't get them finished in time.
Here are a few tips to help get you, your team and your office organised:
- Take time to get everyone in the office to clean and refresh the
office
- Make improvements by having colour coded files, folders, labels and
tabs so that you can categorise and file much easier.
- File items Alphabetically
- Purchase storage products to keep everything in its place and make
use of the space. You can pick up some cheap storage items from places
like Howard's Storage World, Ikea or Office Works to name a few.
- Make sure you and your team always write a 'to do list' everyday and
prioritise the items according to importance.
- Use a calendar. Preferably on the computer so that you can synchronise
it with your mobile phone or handheld. It will help you remain on track
where ever you are.
- Review or modify your list you goals for 2006 and strategise your
course of action on how you will get from A to B.
- Organise and put a system in place for managing all your tax records.
This will make it easier later in the year and will help eliminate some
of the headaches.
- Update all your contacts from various sources such as business cards
on to your computer. This will keep data centralised so that you can
use the information more efficiently.
- Learn to say no.
- If you can't say no then learn to negotiate
- Delegate it. Delegate more! People prefer bosses who delegate too
much rather than too little. Monitor, support, train, empower and the
delegated task and you will find you will have less problems.
- More efficient systems Whatever your repeating tasks are, set up a
system to either prevent the problem (e.g. laminated checklist, better
information on intranet, clear responsibilities of team) or to make
the task quicker (e.g. files organised on computer, automatic excel
forms, organised desk).
- Spend a few minutes listing the things that you know are regular annoyances
in your week. Go to work on brainstorming easy systems that attend to
each of these simply, quickly and immediately.
- Store items near where you use them.
- Go paperless where possible.
- Create your vision of a clean work environment. Using your existing
office space, sketch the ideal configuration of your office on paper.
- Take one day, right now, and organize. You will never have the time
to organize unless you schedule it on your calendar.
- If you don't use an item every day, move it away from your desk.
- Create a new project file folder. To avoid clutter put all new project
information, drafts and associated paperwork into an expandable file
folder. This makes the information readily accessible and keeps it off
your desk.
Reorganization of you, your office and your team can inject new energy
into a travel business and gives you a chance to refocus and get on the
fastrack for 2006.
tell
us what you think
We offer this article on a nonexclusive basis. You may reprint or repost this material as long as Adrian Caruso's name and contact information is included.
email, 07 3630 1298, http://www.tafastrack.com
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