my portable office

The Second Monday in January is National Clean Off Your Desk Day! If you look around, though, you may notice that desks and work spaces look vastly different than they did a few years ago!

My “desk” or “work space” is often just my smart phone, as I work through my days out with clients and at meetings.

Even in my actual office, I move between my laptop, IPad and smart phone as I work and connect with clients, or friends and family.  Here are 6 ways to organize your new and evolved “office”!

1. Keep your tech items (laptop, tablets, smart / mobile phones) charged. Tech items are only good if they actually work.  Last year, my old IPhone battery slowly stopped holding a charge.  It became nerve-wracking, knowing I could run out of battery life at any moment.  Once I got my new phone, I realized how much I had stressed over the lack of battery life!  Save yourself some mental energy, and: make a habit of charging your stuff; keep extra chargers and cords in obvious places (like your desk at work, or in your car); and if a dying battery is a real concern of yours, invest in an external battery charger / power bank.
2. Keep your tech items updated. Updates matter, and exist (in theory) to keep our tech items running smoothly.  Last Fall, I set my IPad and IPhone to automatically update, instead of trying to remember to update as needed (which I always forgot to do).  Again, one less worry.
3. Keep your data up to date.  Create a habit of adding phone numbers and contact info into your phone as soon as it comes in.  Any time I receive a call or text from a new phone numbers, I add the contact to my list.  My habit is to not answer any calls from unknown numbers, too, so adding contact info helps me effectively decide what calls to answer and which to skip.  In addition, I connect my IPhone to my laptop multiple times a day to keep all the data current. I’m sure there is an automatic way of doing this, too, so I’ll need to research that!
4. Clear your email clutter. This time of year, I have “Unsubscribe x 5” at the top of every day’s to-do list.  As I log into my personal or business emails, I un-subscribe from 5 unwanted ad emails, instead of just deleting them.  I am already noticing cleaner in-boxes!
5. Clear your device / smart phone screen clutter. Clear screen clutter by keeping your most used apps on your first screen, deleting unused apps, and making folders for similar apps (like “travel” or “games”).
6. Clean Your Tech, like actually clean, today!  Wipe down your cases, screens, keyboards, ear buds, etc.  Because, well – ewwww!

So how will you Clean Off Your Virtual Desk today?  Get to it, and good for you!