Far too often, businesses are so focused on keeping up with their day-to-day tasks, that they fail to see how much time they’re wasting. In other words, they have a broken office. But, how do you know if you have a broken office? Below are a list of symptoms we frequently encounter in broken offices. Once you identify the symptoms affecting your office, you can work toward finding more efficient solutions.

Do these symptoms sound familiar?

• Hoarding information - People hoard information and documents because they don’t trust that there is a company-wide system in place.
• Misplaced files - Employees can’t find documents because there isn’t a file naming convention or method for tracking version control.
• Incorrect contact information - People in your company frequently email each other to gain access to a client’s contact information because there isn’t a central place to store shared contacts.
• Prolonged training - Your company spends too much time training new employees because systems aren’t documented properly.
• Poor space planning - You see your coworkers walk back and forth to their desk unnecessarily to retrieve items they frequently use (printer, client files, etc.) because they aren’t located near their desk.
• Duplicate efforts - People at your office unknowingly duplicate efforts because roles and responsibilities are not clearly defined.
• Unreliable technology - Your team gets frustrated with unreliable or outdated technologies that waste their time.

Showing multiple symptoms of a broken office? Schedule a free 15-minute consultation to discuss solutions with us!

Odds are you no longer have a Rolodex on your desk.  Or if you do, it’s most likely a little dusty and no longer relevant because we’ve become an increasingly mobile society. If you’re looking for a new contact management system to replace your Rolodex, here are some qualities that a modern day Rolodex should have:

Available on multiple devices

Back in the day, before cell phones and tablets and laptops, you only needed one place to keep all of your contacts.  Today, we have a wider variety of tools and devices to hold this information, meaning we have a different set of needs now.  Your contacts need to be available on all your devices, including your cell phone, tablet, laptop, etc.  It’s important to sync your mobile devices to ensure access to your contacts anytime.

Ability to sort into categories

In an effort to categorize their contacts, people used to put colored stickers on their Rolodex cards.  This type of categorization is still helpful today.  To help you stay organized, categorize your contacts (e.g. clients, vendors, networking contacts, etc.).

Track communications

Remember writing notes on the back of your Rolodex cards to note the last time you contacted someone?  Today’s modern Rolodex should also track when you last contacted someone.  Add a category field to make a note of each time you follow-up with a contact or keep track of it in the notes section.

Capture information

People also used to jot notes on the back of Rolodex cards so they could add a personal touch next time they called (for example, “Ask how their recent vacation was”).  Your modern day Rolodex should be able to capture conversation starters to add a personal touch.

There are so many options for storing your contacts depending on your needs.  For keeping track of personal contacts, iCloud is a great option for Mac users.  For a more robust solution, consider switching to a CRM system.  Check out our Contact Management Consulting to give your company or personal contact management system a facelift.

Scroll through your phone for a moment and look at how many contacts you have stored. Now consider how many contacts a small company may need to stay on top of regularly. A company recently came to us for help tackling just this - their overwhelming contact lists.

Although contacts were stored within a single tool such as Microsoft Outlook, the team members knew they needed to be reviewed and cleaned up. The team shared several contact lists and some contacts had duplicate entries while others were missing information. Since they are busy mobile workers it was necessary to organize the contacts so the team is no longer slowed down by searching for data.

To tackle the contact clean-up project, we, the productivity consultants from Innovatively Organized, found and removed duplicate contacts and then flagged contacts with missing information. Next, the team reviewed the flagged contacts and tried to fill the gaps of missing information by gathering the most up-to-date information for contacts possible. We then recommended a process of inputting future contacts to reduce the chance of duplicates being created.

The shared contact lists are now much more reliable for the company’s team members, with up-to-date information and duplicate contacts removed.

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Can you relate to this? What is your biggest contact organizing challenge? Leave a comment and let us know!

Innovatively Organized is a Seattle-based productivity consulting firm providing digital clutter clean-up and process improvement services to small businesses and over-extended executives. Call us for a free 15-minute phone consultation.

Now that most contact information is stored electronically, you may have a Rolodex sitting on a shelf gathering dust. But don’t write it off just yet! There are many useful and innovative ways to repurpose that “old” organizer:

• Store recipes and pictures of dishes - use the transparent sleeves to keep it clean from spills in the kitchen
• Re-label the alphabetical tabs with months of the year and store birthday and anniversary dates
• Use it to organize small stickers or embellishments for your scrapbooking project
• Sports collectors can organize their baseball cards
• If you recently painted walls or furniture, store the paint chip for future reference.