It's Business, Baby - Let's Get Organised

Marij Hessel for My Attic

There's something about the new year that, even in business, when it's not necessarily the start of your new financial year, seems to instil everyone to have a revamp. Revamp their offices, their accounting, their organisation. When you're a one (or two) man band in business, being organised in your day to day life is so imperative to increasing productivity. I lamented recently that from the outside, the ways that I keep myself and required tasks organised probably appears pretty chaotic, but they work for me. Here's a little look at how I keep my shit together!

Blue Sky Thinking
We all know the importance of having a 1 year, 3 year, 5 year plan in business, but I don't believe that keeping it typed in a business plan that sits on your computer is the most efficient way of keeping your big goals in mind. Out of sight, out of mind definitely works for me (just take a look under my bed...) so I have to keep those big overarching goals within everyday sight. I have a whiteboard on our office wall that is divided into sections; one for 5 year plans (more like a brainstorm!), a section where I've stuck my Veronica Dearly Terrific 2014 plan and goals and then a section to note down things like expected press and samples out so I don't forget to check up on them!

Terrific 2014
For this year, I'm using my new Veronica Dearly 2014 Wall Planner to keep a track of events and dates that it won't be 'business as normal' in the office. This sits above my desk, so that I've got a constant reminder of what events we've got coming up and how that will form our week-by-week plan. I back this up on iCal on my computer, iPad and phone too, so it's synced everywhere and I can't double book ourselves.

Month by Month
Alongside my Terrific 2014 print out on my whiteboard, sits its' sister print out, the goals by month checklist. Sitting these together is important to me, because it allows me to keep big goals in mind when breaking them down to monthly activities. I also back this up with a monthly goal checklist in Wunderlist so I've always got it with me on the go, too.

Week by Week
I use a desktop pad to plan our week by week activities, and besides the obvious of processing orders and keeping business ticking over, I can refer to all of the above to make sure we've got something in there that meets our goals for the year and beyond! I divide our tasks by day and then also note down what I want to achieve next week, and switch up the pages on a Sunday. It's literally right in front of my face every day so I can stay focussed on the tasks at hand and avoid spending hours on Pinterest (ahem). As an aside, has anyone seen any cute versions of these? The one I'm using is so corperate it makes my eyes hurt.

Day by Day
As mentioned above, the desktop pad comes back into play here, with the week divided into days and then drilled down further into specific tasks for each day. I also use my inbox as a to-do list for custom orders and requests, press leads etc and try to clear it by the end of each week.