Owning a business can be stressful. There is so much to do, so much to learn, that it can be easy to start to drown in all of it.
What can you do to help keep your head above the water?
There are a few Tips and tricks for small business organization that you can get started with to start organizing your business. Good organizing can be the difference between a business succeeding and failing.
Keep a planner
Let’s get the most obvious one out of the way first. You need a planner. There are a lot of different ways to go about this, so don’t worry if you aren’t a fan of the traditional, physical planner. Though, if you are, then great! You know exactly where to start. Otherwise, let’s talk about a couple other options.
- Bullet journals are a good option if you are more free-form in how you keep track of your notes or to-do’s. This way, you can create your own planner and design it however you see fit.
- What works better for you than a planner you make for yourself? Or, if you like to idea of a bullet journal but not of drawing out all of the pages yourself, there are lots of free PDF planners online that you can download and print out to use yourself.
- An online planner or app is another option. I personally just go for Microsoft Calendars because I can access it on my phone, iPad, and laptop. Online options are nice when you switch between devices often, because you can access the sync your planner across all of them!
Passwords all in one place
If you’re anything like me, you tend to juggle your passwords and logins around your head and just hope that you remember them when you need them. Then that fateful day comes where you’re left starting at that “incorrect password” message with no idea what any other option could be. Nothing hurts more than locking yourself out of your own account.
To combat this, I started keeping a journal of my passwords. I write them down by hand in a cute journal I found at the bookstore and update it regularly. You can also get real fancy and create a table of contents or an index and everything.
For those of you who prefer to keep all your information digital, there are tons of password apps that you can download to keep them all in one place. For a simple, secure option, use Google Password Manager.
Keep a dedicated business email
We are all painfully familiar with how clogged our emails can get.
Have you ever gotten that notification from Gmail letting you know that your account storage is almost full?
That is how bad my email has gotten.
You could go through your email and delete all that spam, unsubscribe from every newsletter you thought you’d actually read, and block all those bots, or you could start fresh. Having a business email is a great way to keep your inbox neat and sorted since you can use your spammy email for everything else.
Starting with a blank inbox is also a breath of fresh air quite unlike anything else. This is a great option, especially if you are just starting out. It also will add an extra layer of security to your business since this new email won’t be attached to all of your personal accounts.
Use less paper
There are many positives to keeping your files organized online. There are lots of apps you can use or this, such as Google Docs, The Cloud, or Dropbox, my personal favorite. This way you don’t have to worry about losing track of that one really important document or misplacing your project notebook and having to recreate all of it. Even better, if your computer crashes and you lose all of your files, they are still safely saved online where you can access wherever you need to.
Keeping your business organized can seem overwhelming and stressful.
If you’re here, you probably know exactly what I am talking about. Through your journey into a neat and tidy world, remember to only use the strategies that work best for you. We are all different, and will all do things in different ways, and that’s okay! I wish you the best on your organizational journey.
