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8 tips to help organise your office
It’s almost spring. If you are in a cleaning frenzy, why stop at your home? Take some time to spring clean and help organise your office. We’ve 8 tips to get your office organised.
Preparation
Before you even start spring cleaning get some boxes, bin bags and a recycling container. You can then clear and sort as you go.
Clear desk policy
Clean and clear desk? You can start getting organised. Begin by putting back the “essentials” first (computer, phone, printer) then move onto the rest.
Ditch old piles of papers
Growing paper mountains are no good to anyone however before pushing them into nearest recycling bin, take some time to go through those stacks of paper. Do you really need all those papers? Create a filing system and use that in future rather than making new paper mountains – a series of trays (in tray, out tray etc), magazine racks or a month by month concertina file are just three suggestions.
Go Paperless
A “paperless” office should be embraced rather than scoffed at. You can keep all “essential” printouts in pdf form and store them on a cloud based storage solution (such as dropbox). It’s a lot easier to read documents on portable devices (phones, kindles, tablets) than it used to be.
Declutter
Are you a stationery lover? If your desk was previously scattered with staplers, post-its and other bits, have a sort through. Items used on a regular basis can stay on your desk but those infrequently used items should be put away in drawers.
Computer and email
Organisation doesn’t just stop with your desk. Is your desktop background cluttered with icons and shortcuts? Organise them into useful folders.
What about your email inbox? Is it full of EVERYTHING or just new unread items? Create a series of folders and file emails when you’ve read them. By adding the letter A in front of each label of your most used folders and Z to those least your emails will be easier to navigate.
Cables
Do you need all those devices connected to that writhing mass of cables under your desk? Put that printer away if you haven’t used it in the last month. Think about going wireless. There are plenty of good wireless keyboards, printers and mice you can buy these days. Alternatively bind those cables all together with cable ties so they are out of the way.
Saving time
The time spent thinking about and establishing new filing systems, will save you time in the future. You can then spend just 5 minutes each day sorting, shredding, recycling and you will keep on top of things. However, if time really is at a premium, you could always hire a Virtual Assistant, like Red Desk to set up and maintain the systems for you.
mel@reddesk.co.uk
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Effective Web Searches Using Google
When you’re using Google to find out any kind of research or information, there are several types of web searches you can do to improve your chances of finding exactly what you’re looking for and save yourself a lot of time. Here are some really useful commands.
Firstly a great search to know is How to use Google as a Dictionary; if you’re interested in finding a quick dictionary style definition of any word, then use the syntax define: . You just type define: yule and you will be simply given the meaning rather than a general search of anything that includes the word “yule”. If you’re not sure if you have the correct spelling Google will helpfully suggest an alternative just as it does for regular searches.
How to Search within Website Titles: sometimes you may want to find Web pages where one or more words appear in the title of the page. There may be many web pages that mention what you’re looking for, but it may not be the main focus of the page. If you only want pages that are dedicated to the subject then you use the syntax intitle: . So if you type intitle:Saint Nicholas, you will only be shown pages that are solely about Saint Nicholas, useful!
Searching for Synonyms; use this search when you’re not really sure what you’re looking for! When you put a tilde ~in front of your search word Google will show searches for your chosen word and synonyms i.e. different words with almost identical or similar meanings. You should not leave any space between the tilde and the word you’re searching for i.e ~fir trees, this search will bring results for pine trees & evergreens too.
Boolean Search: There are two basic Boolean search commands in Google, AND and OR. AND searches for all the search terms, “Santa Claus AND Elves”, so you will be shown any pages that contain both Santa Claus and Elves. However if you use OR, “Santa Claus OR Elves”, this will bring up all pages that are about either Santa Claus or Elves. Google defaults to the AND search so you don’t really need to type AND in to get the results. The OR command needs to be in capital letters otherwise Google will ignore it.
Contact me on lindsay@reddesk.co.uk
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