“Organizing should not be an annual event,” says speaker, author, and business consultant Odette Pollar. When handling your “in-box” items, take a four-step approach: touch, decide, track, and put away. Pollar says all papers should “live with” related papers, whether finished or not. But, if you can handle it in 30 seconds or less, do it now.
Cancel your subscriptions to all but essential magazines. Better to read less — but thoroughly — than to try to read too much.
Keep the top of your desk as working space, not storage space.
Turn off the audible alarm on your e-mail so you can stay focused on the task at hand. Allot a specific time, or times, of the day for reading and responding to your e-mail, as well as for responding to phone calls.
According to Pollar, organizing is a skill that can be learned by anyone. But it's a two-step process: getting there, and staying there. Keep it simple, she says. The simplest way is the best way.
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