Get Organized

Dedicate time today to organize your electronic work place and create processes to stay organized. Below are suggestions accompanied with instructions.


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Email



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Calendar


  • Put all of your appointments in one central place rather than dispersed in invitations, paper calendars, etc.

    Here's How: Outlook, Entourage, Webmail

  • Create entries for recurring appointments (e.g., committee meetings, exercise, regular lunch dates) on your electronic calendar

    Here's How: Outlook, Entourage, Webmail

  • Categorize your appointments with color so you can quickly identify them

    Here's How: Outlook or Entourage

  • Share your calendar with colleagues (proxies in MeetingMaker)

    Here's How: Outlook or Entourage


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Contacts/Address Book


  • Create entries for all of your contacts in one central place rather than dispersed in scraps of paper, business card piles, etc.

    Here's How: Outlook, Entourage, Webmail-Basic, Webmail-Premium

  • If you imported addresses from Thunderbird or other email software, clean up contacts that did not have a display name and can not be searched easily.
  • If you had addresses in MeetingMaker, remove any duplicate addresses in Outlook, Entourage, or Webmail if you had those same contacts in your email software.

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Task Lists


  • Create one master list of action items you need to do

    Here's How: Outlook, Entourage, Webmail

  • Write each item on the list as a specific next action (e.g., Email Max re: conference dates, Draft agenda for workshop, Find receipts from trip)
  • Create a master list of projects to review weekly so important yet non-urgent projects stay on your radar screen
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Computer Files & Desktop



Organize Computer Desktop

  • Delete the documents on your computer's desktop that are no longer needed

    Here's How: Click and drag items to the Trash

  • Arrange documents and applications on your Desktop

    Windows: Right click from desktop, Select "Arrange Incons By..."
    Mac: In Finder, Select "View" > "Arrange By..."

  • Customize your Start Menu (Windows) or Dock (Mac)

Clean Up Files within Folders

  • Delete the documents in "My Documents" or other file folders that are no longer needed
  • Create folders for documents that are are necessary to keep but not regularly used
    Windows: From "My Documents", Select "File" menu, then "New" > "Folder" Mac: From Finder, Select "File" menu, then "New Folder"
  • Empty the trash

    Mac: From Finder menu, Select "Empty Trash"
    Windows: Right click on Recycle Bin > "Empty Recycle Bin"


Back up Important Work

  • Copy your important files or folder(s) onto the network drive so that they are backed up in case of hard drive failure.

Further Reading