Do you constantly find yourself searching for documents, email attachments, or important files? Do you find yourself spending your time looking for things instead of getting work done? If so, then you’re like many other professionals who waste too much time at work. In today’s world, the average worker spends nearly an hour a day searching for files and documents. That may not seem like a lot of time, but after a 260-working-day year, it adds up to over 100 hours annually! In this blog post, we’ll share five tips to save time at work by avoiding unnecessary distractions and spending less time searching for documents.
Organize your files with HapPhi file storage and labeling
If you want to save time at work, you must first start with good organization. This means having a place for everything and keeping track of those places so you can find the information you’re looking for quickly. You don’t want to have to go on a hunt for a file and then go to another place to print something out. In order to keep files organized, try creating folders and subfolders. The best way to do this is to have an overall structure that makes sense and is easy to understand. You can do this in a physical filing cabinet or digitally. If you choose to do it digitally, make sure you have a place to store all of your files, such as on a laptop or desktop computer and on a cloud server like HapPhi. Another option is to use a filing cabinet that is designed to keep things digital.
Don’t rely on email for document storage
If you rely on email to store important documents, you are setting yourself up for a world of stress and wasted time. Email is an incredibly inefficient way to store anything and everything. For starters, if you send multiple documents in an email, you could run into a problem if the recipient doesn’t open the email and save the documents. Any document you send or receive in an email will also probably be printed out multiple times. Furthermore, email has a very limited amount of storage, meaning if you rely on it for document storage you will eventually run out of space and need to delete emails.
Use HapPhi digital to-do list to stay focused and productive
To-do lists are often used as a productivity tool to help you stay focused and organized. However, many people make the mistake of writing down everything they need to get done on paper or in a digital document and then keeping it on their desk. You probably already know that you need to stay focused in order to be productive, which means you shouldn’t have a dozen things on your desk that constantly remind you of what you need to do. Instead, use a digital to-do list, such as HapPhi digital to-do list, where you can add and cross off items as you finish them. The benefit of using a digital to-do list versus a paper one is that you can access it from anywhere. A paper to-do list is only useful when you are at your desk.
Automate common business processes
Many businesses spend a lot of time on the same processes over and over again. For example, many accounting departments have to manually enter data into the books each month. This is time-consuming and tedious and could be done much more efficiently and quickly if it were automated. Similarly, many sales teams have to manually process orders and enter them into the system. Instead of doing this manually, these teams can use automation and software to save time and be more productive. For example, if your sales team gets an order, they can enter the details into a software program and the order will automatically be sent to the accounting department for processing. This saves time because an employee doesn’t have to manually enter the information into the system. It also saves money because less employees are needed to do the work.
Conclusion
There are many ways to save time at work, but if you don’t organize your files and documents, use email as a storage device, rely on paper to-do lists, and spend time manually doing things that could be automated, you will probably find yourself spending a large amount of time looking for the documents you need. To save time at work, start by organizing your documents and files. Don’t rely on email to store important documents and use a digital to-do list. Finally, automate common business processes to save time and money by making tasks more efficient.