Best Strategies for Keeping Your Small Business Organized

In small team settings, it’s incredibly easy to lose track of just about everything. When team members fill multiple roles and responsibilities shift on an as-needed basis, concepts from brainstorming sessions and assignees for action plans can fall through the cracks. Lost ideas and lost progress mean wasted time and energy. The best strategies for keeping your small business organized focus on communication, access, and routines as key tools for better productivity.

Create Procedures for You and Your Team

The first thing a small business should do to improve its organizational structure is create written and agreed-upon procedures for the team to follow. You should document brainstorming sessions for new products or new strategies in the same way and in the same place so that any team member can return to these ideas as necessary to implement them. The expected timelines of specific work tasks, such as creating graphics for social media, should be clear-cut and in writing so that other teammates can easily understand where a task is and when they need to get involved. Creating these detailed procedures will increase consistency and help more tasks move from ideas to finished products.

Use a Tool That Fits Your Habits

The business world has been fixated on work organization tools and systems for decades. Tracking products, task stages, and customer engagement are all vital to monitoring progress and finding opportunities for improvement. Many companies now rely on applications and computer programs to help them find better organizational strategies. However, the current needs of your business may not necessitate expensive software, as most project management tools are designed to accommodate hundreds of tasks carried out by large teams. Consider all facets of your business’s functions as you implement Product Information Management or Agile solutions.

The most important thing about using any software tools in your work, from shared spreadsheets to digital scrum boards, is to ensure that your team can and will use the tool consistently. If interacting with the software slows down your team, or if something about the program makes them seek other documentation strategies, re-evaluate.

There are software packages that can streamline your business’s processes and ensure you don’t fall short of your regulatory obligations, as well as plenty else in between. Things such as HMDA compliance solutions can make your life a lot easier and help you to avoid major mistakes that might not only result in fines for your business but also negatively impact clients in some instances too.

Plan for Scaling

While it may not seem pressing for small businesses currently struggling to organize their workflow, you should find strategies that will continue to work for your business as it grows. Finalizing procedures and making them accessible will benefit new hires trying to understand the company’s mission and processes, so write today’s procedures with next year’s employees in mind. If your current organizational tools only work for ten employees, plan for necessary upgrades as your company expands. Keeping the concept of business scaling in mind will prevent drastic overhauls in the future.

The best strategies for keeping your small business organized are those that you can adapt to your team and the needs of your industry. Every business will find that its employee dynamics will demand unique tools and systems to run their best. As you take steps to organize your business better, prepare for trial-and-error periods, and remain open to feedback and new ideas.