Use the colours of the World Cup to get organised!

So the glitz and glamour of the World Cup are over for another 4 years, and whilst the England team will (hopefully) be focussing on what went wrong and how they can make improvements for the next big tournaments, the German team will be reflecting on their outstanding performance and enjoying a beer or two I imagine!

 

The vibrancy and colour of the Brazilian World Cup were amazing; from the opening ceremony’s colour co-ordinated official World Cup 2014 song, to the informally dressed TV football pundits out at their beachside reporting locations. There were some sights to behold!

Colour positively flowed through each match; the crowd, the team, the mascots, and it got me thinking about how colour plays a huge part in making things work easily. The Dutch team all wear orange – they know who to pass the ball to.  The crowd wear yellow & green – they must therefore support Brazil (or just like the t-shirt!).  The referees wear black – easily identifiable.  The point is, that colour makes it easy for people to instantly recognise which player belongs to which team, who they should pass the ball to, and so on.

And just like that, using different colours for different projects or tasks in your workspace can make things simpler and save time for you too!  So here are my 5 tips for using colour to make your life more organised;

1) FOLDERS –  Using a range of different coloured folders can help you to group specific projects, Clients, type of work, etc together.  Pink? Easy – that’s receipts for business use.  Black?  That’s flyers and business cards.  Clear?  Personal paperwork to action.  Use for school letters, out-of-school activities, household maintenance, bills, etc.  You get the idea?  A4 or A5 depending on what you need to store.  The choice is yours!

2) POST-IT NOTES  –  And I don’t just mean yellow squares.  Try the thumb sized coloured tags for labelling up specific parts of a large document, or a page markers for reference books or brochures.  Try them also on ‘in trays’ and other paper storage containers.  Use them to make notes about different aspects of your business, for different people in your family, or for reminders, ideas, and messages around the home.

3) PENS & PENCILS  –  Don’t be restricted to just your usual blue or black pens.  Use colour like it’s going out of fashion!  Red might be to mark urgent items on a list, green might be for ideas to develop.  Highlighters are great for flagging certain parts of a text, or grouping like-for-like ideas.

4) EMAILS  –  Use the colour options within your email program to best effect, by allocating them to things that are important to you.  Whether you want to colour a complete message header from someone, or just to flag a follow-up as part of a group of tasks, the colour options are there for you.  Prioritise to suit you.  What?  You didn’t know they existed?  Search them out under your Settings and create colourful groups.  Try setting some rules to move emails to certain folders whilst you’re there and you’ll save room in your Inbox too.

5) ONLINE CALENDARS  –  Along the same lines 4 above, give your calendar entries some sense of order.  As someone who has two businesses, makes Client bookings, networks a lot, and has no end of family activities, colour-coding my diary entries are critical, so that – at a glance – I can see where I am supposed to be, and if it is school, work or Client related.  Whether you use GMail, Outlook, iCal or other systems, there will be something for you.  Just remember to apply the colour when booking your events in, and it should work easily for you.

If you implement even just one of these 5 time-saving ideas, you can be assured of an easier ride!  Do let me know how you get on!

Need help getting your workspace or work systems organised?  I can help!  Investing the time to get yourself organised, your desk clear of ‘not sure what’, and your computer systems working more efficiently will save you time and money in the long-run.  No more missed appointments.  No more missing paperwork. With many years experience working in and managing corporate office spaces, and running businesses from home, I know how important it is to manage your space effectively, and I like nothing more than to sort paper and make sense of it!