Staying Organised For A Successful 2024

Many of us spent the December period decluttering our homes and organising and planning our lives so that we could go into the new year prepared, ready to tackle what comes our way and have a successful, stress-free year. The same should be done for our work, with strong structures and plans in place, you can set your company or work up for success in 2024.

Here are a few tips on how you can organise your company, your team and yourself.

Your Company

If you could get all the people in the organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time. – Patrick Lencioni

The key to keeping your company organised is communication and alignment. When the entire organisation is aware of the goals and following a standardised way of work, they become one unit focused on achieving the right objectives.

Communication

Understanding the mission, vision, goals and objectives of the organisation provides a clear roadmap for decision-making, aligns efforts towards a common purpose and creates a sense of direction.

Effective communication of these aspects ensures that employees are aligned and engaged; understanding the direct impact and effect that their work has.

To ensure that communication is flowing through the business, the two most important elements to get right are:

Implement A Communication Strategy and Channels

The starting point of all great communication is having a strategy that defines your communication objectives, what you want to communicate, to whom, where and when as well as the metrics for success. This framework allows the right people to get the right message when they need it ensuring a well-informed and cohesive workforce.

Develop A Collaboration Model

A collaboration model serves as the structure for why, how and when your organisation meets and is the backbone for decision-making and communication processes. This framework enables key discussions, policy implementations and ensures adherence to regulatory requirements such as King IV.

When designed correctly (from a strategic, tactical and operational level), the collaboration model facilitates the exchange of ideas, enables collaborative problem-solving, and enhances coordination ensuring that communication flows through the business.

Alignment

While communication is a key driver of alignment within an organisation, there are several other aspects to consider to increase alignment across the company:

Create and Communicate a Company Calendar

A quick way to ensure that the entire company is aware of key deliverables and milestones is to create a company calendar incorporating items that occur on a consistent and regular basis such as budgets, incentive submissions, performance appraisals etc. By providing a shared timeline, it enables teams to coordinate their efforts and plan accordingly.

Deploy Project Management Tools

Providing a standardised project management tool to your entire organisation enhances collaboration, provides a centralised platform for tracking and reporting on progress and when designed correctly can streamline workflows.

In order to see the benefits of a project management system, teams need to use them consistently and according to the principles of the system design. Along with robust change management and training, teams should be engaged at the start of the design journey to address their needs and ensure widespread adoption of the system.

Implement Standardised Processes

Implementing standarised processes applies both at a company and a team level by establishing a consistent framework for tasks and workflows. By ensuring that each individual follows a uniform way of doing things, there are a host of benefits such as:

• Customers receive a uniform experience enhancing customer satisfaction metrics
• Employee performance metrics can be determined as there is a standard way and time to perform tasks which enables objective measurement of employee performance
• Clear roles and responsibilities can be determined based on the tasks that need to be performed by employees within each process
• Content, training and communications can be developed according to standard information and procedures

Your Team

Clearly Define Roles and Responsibilities

Ensure that roles and responsibilities are clearly defined for each team member. Having clear expectations allows employees to plan appropriately, take accountability and ownership for their work and understand how their work will be measured.

Conduct Regular Team and Individual Meetings

Having regular team meetings and a standard approach to these team meetings provides a platform to discuss goals, address challenges, track progress, foster collaboration and communicate important changes in the business.

Leverage Project Management Tools

Although project management tools are designed and implemented at a company level, these can be invaluable for teams to track progress, document action items from team meetings and record key discussions. With the correct design, you can transform a project management tool from a mere tracking system to a dynamic platform that fosters communication and facilitates the seamless execution of tasks.

Centralise Document Management

Create a unified platform/area for storing, accessing and sharing documents. This will provide teams will a central knowledge repository, increase collaboration when working on the same document, enable version control and provide seamless retrieval and sharing of documents.

Yourself

An organisation and its leaders can have the best organisational tools and methods but it’s up to the individual to use these tools and apply additional organisational practices to realise the benefits of:

• Improved productivity
• Reduced stress
• Better time management
• Enhanced creativity
• Increased enjoyment and engagement

Prepare and Plan

Prioritise your tasks

In order to effectively manage your time and meet expectations and commitments, prioritise tasks according to their importance and deadlines. The Eisenhower Matrix is a great tool to help prioritise tasks and determine what action is required based on their urgency and importance. By using this matrix to classify tasks, focus can be given to goals that align with the objectives of the team and organisation, optimise productivity and ensure that time and energy are focused on the tasks that matter most.

Create a schedule for yourself​

Having a schedule helps create a structured day and effectively mange time. An energy audit is a great tool to determine what types of work to do based on energy levels throughout the day, for example, many people find it better to do focused or strategic thinking work early in the morning and leave admin or lighter work towards the end of the day when your energy low.

Another great tool when creating a schedule is to block out time. This can be kept generic by adding categories of work in certain blocks, for example adding focus time for deep work, or very specific blocks by specifying each task that will be worked on. A further enhancement to this schedule is to colour-code each block of time to help visualise where the majority of time is being spent and whether this is in line with the objectives of the company and team and according to the prioritisation matrix.

Top Tip: Add in a buffer to all tasks to prepare for certain tasks taking longer than expected or to deal with unexpected events

Keep Track

Track Your Tasks

Use the company and team’s project management tool to track individual tasks and deliverables. Make sure that tasks have all the necessary information before starting on the task, this should include clear expectations, deadlines and responsible parties.

Use Checklists

Use checklists on the tasks to break it into smaller milestones. This will provide visibility on the progress of the task which increases motivating as well as highlight where there may be challenges or blockers.  

Update Your Tasks

Keep tasks up-to-date with feedback on progress. This provides visibility to stakeholders and reduces the admin of responding to progress update queries.

Declutter Your Mind and Environment

Avoid Multitasking  ​

Although previously seen as a superhuman strength, multi-tasking actually leads to reduced productivity. When switching between tasks, full focus cannot be given to that task resulting in increased errors and the need to redo work.

Reduce Distractions Around Your Workspace​

Distractions can come in both physical and digital forms. Ensure the workspace is decluttered by removing unnecessary paper, having a dedicated space for all items and creating a system to alert people of avalibility (tip: implement a robot lollipop system – red, I am focused – please don’t disturb, yellow, I am busy – ask questions if urgent, green, I am available – ready to collaborate). In the digital space, set up notifications to remove unnecessary distractions and only get notified of important and relevant information and if available, use built-in status types to pause notifications while you focus or present.

References and Other Great Articles

Victorino, R. (2023, November 23). The Eisenhower Matrix: Prioritize Your Time on What Matters Most. Slab. Retrieved January 4, 2024, from https://slab.com/blog/eisenhower-matrix/

Cruz, L. (2023, December 18). 10 Effective Work Habits – Examples and Tips for a Successful Career. Click Up. Retrieved January 4, 2024, from https://clickup.com/blog/work-habits/

Raeburn, A. (2022, October 30). How to get organized: 17 tips that actually work. Asana. Retrieved January 4, 2024, from https://asana.com/resources/get-organized

(2023). Top 5 Tips to Become a More Organised Entrepreneur. Transmit Startup. Retrieved January 4, 2024, from https://www.transmitstartups.co.uk/operations/top-5-tips-to-become-a-more-organised-entrepreneur

Rollings, M. (2023, December 27). A Five Step Plan To Getting Your Team Organized. Hive. Retrieved January 4, 2024, from https://hive.com/blog/team-organization/