Leslie Shreve
Productivity Expert

Client feedback on the benefits of being more organized and more productive...

My MPT interview in August was a great experience! I was interviewed by Jeff Salkin on the show "Your Money and Business" on August 11th. It aired on August 14th and twice on the 17th. For those of you who missed it, it’s on my website now at the top of the "News" page. I learned a lot in this interview... like don't look down when I'm talking! There were other things I noticed too, but all in all it was a great experience and lots of fun and the most important things went really well. And the interview lasted SEVEN minutes! It was fantastic. Check it out when you are taking a break from your productive time.

I've had many clients ask me about how best to organize their business cards and contacts. It's a common question among business owners and people who are responsible for business development in their company. However, everyone in business needs to keep contacts, so I want to offer the best way to store a person's information so you can find who you need when you need them.

The most important thing to know before you do anything is how these business cards are useful to you. If you have a big pile of business cards, separate them first by category. Put them into piles according to who they are to you and how they are useful to you and your business. For instance, you can create categories for 'Clients,' 'Leads' or 'Prospects,' 'Vendors,' 'Networking,' 'Personal,' and one for any other category where you have at least a handful of contacts.

When designating categories, do not make the mistake of creating TOO many categories and too many categories with only one or two contacts within. Keep categories broad and continue that way until you find that they're getting too big, which can make contacts harder to find. Always start big and then create smaller categories if necessary.

Here are 6 steps you can take to eliminate those piles of business cards...

1. Take advantage of computerized data entry such as CardScan, NEAT Business Cards or IrisCard Pro 4 and let these gadgets do most of the work for you. If you have a lot to enter and you want a person to enter them for you, consider hiring an intern or a student to enter them for you.

2. Add contacts and contact information to your computer as you receive the information from email, voice mail or from any other source as soon as possible. You may use Palm, Outlook, Lotus Notes, ACT, SmartOffice or some other email system, but whatever the system is, take advantage of using the computer. Avoid fragmenting any categories between two systems. If you have to keep some contacts in one system and some in another, at least define which categories will go where and stay consistent.

3. If you use Outlook, highlight the contact information you want to take over to ‘Contacts’ and then right click on the email address of the new contact while still in the open email. You’ll see an option to ‘Add to Outlook Contacts.’ Once you’ve opened up a new contact record, you can paste the information from the email into the Notes section of the new Contact and disperse the information to the appropriate fields from there. In other email systems, you can also cut and paste contact information from an email to a new contact record.

4. It is important to know HOW you’ll be using contact information so you’ll know what data to enter. Are you calling, emailing or mailing to this contact? Some categories may not need as much detail as others.

5. Be sure to synchronize if you need to have this contact information available in a Palm Pilot, Pocket PC, Treo, Blackberry, Ipod, etc…outside of the office.

6. I recommend that you part with the business cards after you’ve entered the data and you do regular back-ups of your data. If you must keep the physical cards in your office, here are two commonly used options for keeping the organized: Keep business cards in a full size binder with business card pages holding 20 cards each. Organize the cards alphabetically, with one page per letter of the alphabet, or organize them by category according to how you categorized them in the computer. For networking contacts, you can organize them according to how you met them.

When new information comes into your office and into your work day, remember to keep moving it forward. Don't let it sit, don't let it stall. This doesn't mean you have to DO everything or FINISH everything that comes your way, but you do need to make a decision on it and keep it moving.

The easiest way to do this is to establish these 5 places where things can go, no matter where it came from: email, voice mail, the In Box on your desk or elsewhere. Think of 'darting' through the traffic on the information highway. Use 'DARRT' as an acronym and DARRT through the clutter.

Create one location on a corner of your desk or other surface closest to the door for things you will Delegate, mail out, store elsewhere or give away. This can be your 'outgoing' location.

Establish an Action pile or file on your desk that only holds papers and files you’re currently working on, with actions associated with them. This doesn’t include large binders or files which can be staged on a shelf or credenza or other surface nearby.

Have one place in your office where you put everything you want to Read. Keep it out of your immediate work space where you do most of your work. Please consolidate your reading. If you spread it out around your desk or office, it can be misleading. You may want to read more than you have time for. Be selective about where your reading time is going and pick your best or favorite information sources and skip the rest.

Create really good Reference files for all the information that you will want to reference in the future. Keep only those things that will be truly useful to you. These files belong in a file cabinet or file drawers according to categories first and alphabetically within.

And finally, keep a trash can or recycle bin nearby for all the things which you will Toss.

For a basic illustration of these 5 locations in your office click here.

In all cases, be very selective about what you keep and remember that the less you keep, the less you have to manage. The less you manage, the more you can focus your valuable time on your priorities and get more done… or go home earlier… or both!

"Yes, you want to become a better time manager, but you want to do that because it will allow you to achieve a higher goal. Managing your time better will enable you to accomplish something vitally important to you. Ask yourself what that something is." –Julie Morgenstern – "Time Management from the Inside Out"

Leslie Shreve



leslie@productiveday.com

410-218-4896