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Thread: Office Organization

  1. #1
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    Default Office Organization

    This has been a struggle for me lately: office organization...

    I have many file folders, email folders, outlook calendar etc. All helps, nothing is on the money though as a life saver.

    I have since subscribed to an email management service called "sane box". It has been a massive help for only $12/month, every penny well spent!! Though, always end up with stupid papers that never can get organized or find an appropriate home.

    What do you guys do?

    For papers, I have recently invested in an "Arc notebook" from staples. With a custom hole punch to make any 8.5x11 page be able to bind and the file wherever. Already making decent use out of this, not sure if the answer though....

    Looking for suggestions always.

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    I'm in consulting so my folders are labelled by the following:

    1) Outstanding folder so I know what I need to look at, once I've looked at it, it slots into the below.
    2) By company
    3) By year
    4) By month / project (e.g. 02 Go-to-market Strategy)
    5) By each element of the project (e.g., Data Collection, Phase 1, Phase 2, Design, Integration, etc.)

    In addition to that I'll have some other internal folders to slot other stuff and automatic filtering into "junk" folders for some types of emails that I likely won't read. I make sure to slot everything in each evening or first thing in the morning the following day.

    For papers - notebook is key to keep everything in one place. For other documents, important stuff gets scanned and filed in my email so most of my stuff just gets shredded each week.

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    For me it is making sure I deal with something immediately - the longer it piles up, the less likely I want to deal with it, and it snowballs.

    So if for example if I have a rogue piece of paper, I deal with it right away (file, recycle, shred, whatever). Coming to the realization that it only takes 2 seconds to deal with has made all the difference. I'm also much better than I used to be about immediately knowing if I will ever need to look at something again - 99% of the time the answer is no.

    I keep things electronic whenever possible - a lot of stuff sent to me is PDF and doesn't need to be printed, ever. Then I can search it in a matter of seconds if I ever need it again.

    For the longest time I didn't even use my calendar / reminders - not I put EVERYTHING in there and it has made a big difference which shouldn't be surprising haha.

    I have dozens of "rules" in Outlook for my Inbox that do a good enough job of email organization.

    I also have my own 'rule' - if I haven't looked at something in 6-12 months, it gets recycled. If it's important, I scan it then recycle it. I know people whose offices are full to the brim (every filing cabinet, every shelf) with crap from 2004 and 3 companies ago. Why???

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mitsu3000gt View Post
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    For me it is making sure I deal with something immediately - the longer it piles up, the less likely I want to deal with it, and it snowballs.

    So if for example if I have a rogue piece of paper, I deal with it right away (file, recycle, shred, whatever). Coming to the realization that it only takes 2 seconds to deal with has made all the difference. I'm also much better than I used to be about immediately knowing if I will ever need to look at something again - 99% of the time the answer is no.
    The shift to this mentality has been one of the best things i've done. My rule is "if it takes 5 mins or less, deal with it right away" whether its an email, phone call, online form, etc.

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    I'm definitely going to steal the idea of the "outstanding folder" and the do little things immediately. I sort-of do this already, and usually on the basis of random people walking into my office (intra-office). It can be a huge time waster doing this also though as these little things also stack up quickly I find. "Can you help me with this___", etc. And boom there goes your day. What do you do about this?

    BTW, for those interested in Sane Box (I have no affiliation - just a big fan), please see attached screenshot from my email inbox:
    SaneBox automatically makes folders in your inbox. You get flagged at a set duration (that you control) if no one replies to your email. You can use BlackHole - basically an unsubscribe service or for emails you never look at and auto deletes these emails in 5 days. Also, SaneLater - the program learns your trends, who you reply often and speedily to and what subjects you find a priority and either filters to inbox or SaneLater box. You can train it further as it gets to know you individually.
    Name:  Capture.JPG
Views: 362
Size:  18.1 KB

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    First thing you need to do is get into the mentality that you have to delete everything and anything that you don't need. People get into this habit of keeping around digital content because it doesn't physically take up space so it's okay to let it pile up. No, it's not okay. I've seen people with literally tens of thousands of emails in their inbox. One guy I know never deletes anything and when he replies to emails, he cc's himself so he gets a copy of his response in his inbox (even though there's already a copy in his outbox????). And since we're IT, he can just ask for a bigger quota when he's getting full.

    I basically treat my Inbox as a to-do list, sorted by date in descending order:
    - I try to keep that to-do list at about 20-30 "items or tasks" and always work towards crossing off those items (aka, deleting finished emails).
    - Long email chains are grouped together and considered one item cause it's all one common topic
    - I start the day by going through new emails in my inbox and deleting what I don't need: spam, newsletters, United Way crap (DELETE DELETE DELETE), etc... With the junk gone, I can focus on what's important.
    - Like sabad66 said, if an email can be addressed in a few minutes, I address it immediately so it's not lingering.
    - If an email can't be addressed in a few minutes, I mark it as unread after I'm finished looking it over so I know to come back to it later (cause I fucking hate unread emails haha).
    - Reminders and meetings get put into my calendar ASAP. Then delete the email.
    - When I'm done with an email, if I don't need it after I delete it.
    - If I don't need it after, BUT it contains information that could be important later on, I move it in a separate folder.
    - If I don't need it after, but I'm expecting a follow up, I keep it in my inbox and reevaluate after a couple days.
    - For important email chains, I only keep the ones with useful information or the last one cause it contains the entire thread in the replies. Everything else, delete.
    - I do a quick scan and address or delete what I don't need before I go home for the day.
    - I do a quick scan and address or delete what I don't need before I go home for the weekend.
    - When my inbox starts to get to about 50/75/100 items, it means I've been neglecting something so I start going through the oldest items and working my way to the newest, addressing or deleting what is no longer important.
    - Before I go on vacation, I try and get my inbox down to 10 items or less because I don't want people waiting on me while I'm away since I don't check my work emails when I'm off.

    And like Mitsu said, put everything in your calendar: meetings, reminders, *potential* meetings, coffee/dinner with friends, days off, vacations, etc. Get in the habit of including addresses and meeting rooms too, cause when that alarm goes off for something you forgot about, you might not have time to look for where you were supposed to be.

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    I'm a digital hoarder so I'm just here absorbing

    Random tip: in outlook, you can drag an email over to calendar and it'll create a new appointment/meeting. I use this to schedule tasks /block off times for specific work.

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    Speaking of Outlook tips, i'm a big fan of the 'Clean Up Folder' function. Basically it goes through your entire inbox (or whichever folder you run it on) and cleans up redundant messages. I showed it to my boss who had 6000 or so emails and it reduced it down to 2500 after it was done. best part is you don't lose any info/messages. It's smart enough to keep replies that veer off from the main thread.

    And for me personally i keep things in my deleted items for a year so even if you really want one that was cleaned up, you can always go back and find it in there if you haven't emptied it.

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    I’ve been working with onenote and I’m becoming a big fan of it.

    It’s a tool to do everything in. Pretty amazing piece of software.
    "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents... some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new Dark Age."

    -H.P. Lovecraft

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    I'm too afraid to delete emails thinking I will need something from them in the future (has happened before). And saving them in a folder makes it almost impossible to search and find what you are looking for.

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    Onenote man!!

    Drag and drop your emails, organsize it into tabs and then pages. Back it up one OneDrive and you’re golden.

    Super easy to find and work with.
    "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents... some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new Dark Age."

    -H.P. Lovecraft

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    My boss says the same about OneNote. I have never wrapped my head around it yet though.
    How does OneNote do a better job organizing than an outlook folder though? This is my hurdle...

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    I have a yearly folder with subfolders and sort all my emails into them.

    If i ever have space issues i can archive a year out of outlook and remove them but I have never had to as it seems storage limits go up faster than I can fill them up.
    Originally posted by Thales of Miletus

    If you think I have been trying to present myself as intellectually superior, then you truly are a dimwit.
    Originally posted by Toma
    fact.
    Quote Originally Posted by Yolobimmer View Post
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    guessing who I might be, psychologizing me with your non existent degree.

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    Quote Originally Posted by swak View Post
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    My boss says the same about OneNote. I have never wrapped my head around it yet though.
    How does OneNote do a better job organizing than an outlook folder though? This is my hurdle...
    So here’s an example:

    Let’s say I just sent out for some vendors to price match some items for me. In outlooks you’d have each vendors email and PDF quote. Then you have to open each one to look.

    In onenote, I drag both PDFs, and then copy and paste the email text beside the PDFs. Then I can actually highlight, write or do whatever I want to both emails simultaneously.

    Furthermore, when I’m ready to buy I drop the PO PDF in there, label it, whatever I need.

    I can then email the entire page with everything on it. My notes, vendors, quotes and POs. Two clicks done.

    Productivity is high. That’s just a small example. I use it for my technical work too.

    Shit, I hyperlink SharePoint and OneDrive work right into my onenote and work right from there. AND you can work from onenote on your phone. Www.office.com

    I sound like a salesman. Lol
    "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents... some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new Dark Age."

    -H.P. Lovecraft

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    LOL. Microsoft sales?
    haha. Great advice though, will look to check this out! ... so you can drag and drop into a email from OneNote as well or other microsoft office programs?

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    Yep.
    "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents... some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new Dark Age."

    -H.P. Lovecraft

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    another good use case is saving emails that you always refer back to. For example if someone sends you an email that really explains something well and you always refer back to it. Instead of filing the email and having to dig for it every time, you can click the 'send to onenote' button at the top of outlook and it will save the email in your OneNote notebook.

    It's much better in there because you can easily find it either through organization (tabs + pages) or just by searching (the search function in OneNote is really good).

    Also, my team would have team notebook that we would all share, so all of those reference types of emails become usable for the whole team to use. Basically a knowledge repository.

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    See I just use the printer for that
    Originally posted by Thales of Miletus

    If you think I have been trying to present myself as intellectually superior, then you truly are a dimwit.
    Originally posted by Toma
    fact.
    Quote Originally Posted by Yolobimmer View Post
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    guessing who I might be, psychologizing me with your non existent degree.

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    Our organization religiously uses OneNote and Microsoft Teams for organization. Really good programs.

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    Quote Originally Posted by stealth View Post
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    Our organization religiously uses OneNote and Microsoft Teams for organization. Really good programs.
    we are starting to use Teams now as well. Still trying to get the hang of it but i can see the potential.

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