It’s time to sit down and have an honest talk with yourself. In today’s economy, the first step is making sure you are being as effective (doing the right thing) and efficient (doing the right thing well) as possible.  I hope this article motivates you to take a look at people performance and the workplace environment to prepare yourself and your business for 2009. 

As the cost of doing business constantly rises, corporate leaders are looking for ways to make the office more efficient. Looking at people performances and the workplace environment are two ways to save thousands. How efficient are your employees? A study by Basex, a New York research firm, found that office distractions ate up 2.1 hours a day for the average worker. That adds up to $28 billion a year in the United States alone. According to the Wall Street Journal, the average U.S. executive wastes six weeks every year searching for important documents lost in clutter. If that executive is paid $100,000, a company could be loosing around $11,500 a year just on the one employee. Every time you have to hunt for a record or file, you are losing time that could be applied productively elsewhere. The Small Business Administration (SBA) estimates that 80 percent of what we file never gets looked at again. This means we are searching through information we never use to get to the files we need. When the average worker today has about 37 hours of unfinished work on his/her desk at any time, the need for efficiency is always there. In a society where we have too much to do in too little time, stress becomes the natural result. According to the National Safety Council, U.S. companies lose between $200 to $300 billion a year due to work-related stress. If you see there are pockets of disorganization in your workplace, avoiding or working around them will cost you more in the end. Even one disorganized person affects everyone else in the process. The small cost of getting organized will pay immensely in the end. When your business has fewer resources, it’s important to maximize what is available to you. Your workforce is your greatest asset! Inventing in people performance and the workplace environment is investing in the future of your business.

 

I welcome your comments and questions,

Melinda Smith, CPO(R)

Melinda@balanceharmony.com

www.balanceharmony.com

Practical tips and techniques that will repeatedly help you manage your time more efficiently at the office.

 

Time-Logs

A time-log is an effective way to see where your time actually goes to during the working day. Record the information for about 2 weeks to get a representative picture of time spent.  By logging activities and the time taken to complete them, the time-log provides useful information to know where your time is going.

 

Quality Time

Quality time is where you can plan to do the most important high priority tasks.

• It allows for deep concentration through eliminating interruptions
•  It imposes a structure on work
•  It allows you to move away from reactive work to proactive work

 Dealing with Documents

Document handling can steal a vast quantity of time from your working day.  Improve your document handling by handling documents only once by:

•  Act on what is required by the document
•  File the document for reference later
•  Dump the document

 Managing Interruptions

In any given day we are all interrupted at some stage from the activity that we are undertaking. Whether this is by a phone call or a colleague, they all can impact the time you have allocated to a particular task. Your objective should be to try to reduce the number of unwanted interruptions by applying the following practical techniques:

• Create a visual barrier at your workspace to reduce the incidence of ‘drop-in’ visits
• Don’t have extra chairs in your workspace – people do not hang around as long if they must stand
• For important work – move to another space so the potential interrupters can’t find you!
• Tell people that you are busy, explain why and arrange to contact them at a more suitable time

 Managing Your Workspace

How your workspace is organized has an impact on how efficient you are at managing your time. The following will help you improve your efficiency:

•  De-clutter your desk by clearing it at the end of each working day
•  File documents once they have been used
• Purge files regularly
• Organize a workflow system in your space

 Managing Your Phone

The telephone can be responsible for eating vast quantities of your time. Although many of these calls are a necessary part of your everyday work it is important that you manage the phone by using the following simple rules.

• Batch your outward calls
• Delegate calls that you don’t have to make personally to one of your team
• Terminate calls once the business has been done
• Set up a rotation in your team for handling incoming calls

Remember time management is a skill that can be learned . . . All you have to be is open and committed to learning.  Check out my website at www.balanceharmony.com

–Melinda Smith, CPO®

© Copyrighted, Melinda Smith, www.balanceharmony.com

     Check out this beautiful three year old home we staged in Sherrills Ford on Lake Norman.  It has five bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms with a walk out basement.  Keep in mind master bedrooms are made for rest, rejuvenation, and romance.  Our main goal with this before and after picture was to create a space that pulls that message through to a buyer.  We painted the walls to warm the space up and painted areas of the decorative double trey ceiling to draw attention to that detail.  Exercise equipment doesn’t say rest, rejuvenation, or romance so it had to go.  Instead we pulled in a comfortable leather chair.  Can’t you see yourself sipping coffee in the morning looking out on Lake Norman?  You can call Michelle at Century 21 Hecht Realty 980-722-4971 if you would like to tour this move in ready home or email Melinda at Melinda@balanceharmony.com for Home Staging, Organizing, or Feng Shui assistance in the Lake Norman or Charlotte, North Carolina area. 

       

According to Yahoo News, a McDonalds in Hacienda Heights, California is breaking away from the yellow/red get them in, get them out quick theme. In the past, McDonalds chose the décor to shuffle more people in and out of the door.  Now, they are finding not all communities like to dine in that type of atmosphere.   

Instead, this restaurant hired a Feng Shui practitioner to transform the restaurant located in a large Asian community.  Now you find leather seats, earth tones, bamboo plants and water trickling down glass panels instead of the usual hard plastic furniture.  In Feng Shui, it’s important to use all five elements (fire, metal, earth, water, and wood).  If you have too much metal, the space seems cold and uninviting.  Each element can trigger a discomfort if it becomes dominate in a space.  It’s important to keep a balance between all the elements if you’re looking to create a Zen like environment.   

Although several people in the restaurant commented that they didn’t realize it was Feng Shui, they all agreed the atmosphere was relaxing . . . And worth coming back to again and again.  That is what Feng Shui should do for everyone.  If you are looking to calm the screaming kids (bright colors tend to excite them more) and create a home or business with Zen, email me and let’s talk.  

Check out this fabulous 1 1/2 story home in Birkdale Village.  It is in a great location and is move in ready.  We did a lot of simplifying, furniture re-arranging and creating a purpose for every room.  Email me if you would like more information about Home Staging.  

Welcome to my organizing, Feng Shui, and Home Staging blog.  My name is Melinda and I’ve owned Balance and Harmony for the last five years.  My mission is to empower and educate conscious individuals to create an environment based on focus, intention, and balance.  When you develop an optimal environment whether it be for yourself or a  perspective buyer, the potential is limitless.