Get organized at work: 17 tips for tasks and teams

An organization might feel like a "born with it" trait; you either have it, or you don't. But actually, organization can be learned and honed like any other soft skill. Organized people are less likely to miss important tasks and tend to feel less stressed.

When things are organized, you know where to find your daily to-dos, how to grab that template you always use, and which emails need to be sent today. This leaves you more time for brainstorming, creating, and higher impact problem solving.

What are the benefits of being organized?

The benefits of being organized include reduced stress, increased productivity, and more time for meaningful work and can see all your tasks in one place, you accomplish more without feeling burned out.

Getting organized gives you time for the work that matters. It's a high-impact way to help yourself feel better and happier at your job, thanks to these benefits:

1. A more flexible schedule. Organizing and managing your schedule with time management tools can cut out time wasters, giving you more time for focus and deep work.

2. Less stress. When you're organized, you know where things are, when they're due, and what steps you need to take to get work done. There's no need to worry because every task is assigned and has a deadline.

3. More space for creativity. You know that mental task list that keeps running tabs on what needs to get done? That's taking up a huge amount of precious brain capacity. Outsourcing these items from your mind will leave more space for creative, focused work.

4. Less risk of burnout. When you're feeling stressed and overwhelmed, you're more likely to make hurried decisions. This increases stress and, when compounded over time, leads to burnout. Getting organized helps you feel in control of your work and reduces overwork.

5. Increased productivity. In a perfect organization system, every piece of work has a purpose, an owner, and a deadline. Having an organized system reduces the amount of time spent on meaningless tasks and boosts productivity.

Organization also reduces busywork, such as following up on tasks, switching between apps, and checking for status updates. 60% of our days are consumed by busywork, leaving only 40% for skilled work and strategy. When you know where things are, you spend less time searching for information and more time achieving your goals.

What does it mean to get organized?

Getting organized means arranging your tasks, information, and resources so you can manage them effectively. It's about creating systems that help you know what needs to be done, when to do it, and where to find what you need.

In the workplace, an organization goes beyond a tidy desk. It includes:

• Time management: Controlling your schedule and protecting focused work time

• Project tracking: Knowing the status of every task and deliverable

• Team communication: Keeping everyone aligned on priorities and progress

• Work prioritization: Focusing on high-impact tasks that drive results

The good news? Organization isn't a personality trait you're born with. It's a skill you can develop through practice and the right tools.

17 ways to get, and stay, organized

Organizing your work can feel overwhelming, especially if it doesn't come naturally to you. But like many things in the workplace, you can tackle organization by breaking it down into more manageable steps. Whether you're looking to organize your individual tasks, your project-level work, or your team's entire system, here's how to get started.

6 ways to organize your to-dos

A great place to start is organizing your individual tasks. Tracking and writing down your to-dos helps you get things done faster and more effectively.

1. Track your to-dos in a central place

The more you try to mentally track things in your brain, the less productive you'll be. The first step to making a better to-do list is to get it out of your head.

This is a key tenet of the getting things done (GTD) method, which encourages you to free up brain power by tracking your to-dos in a tool instead of in your head. Once you have all of your to-dos written down, use a to-do list tool to turn those tasks into organized, actionable steps. With a digital to-do list manager, you can see all of your tasks, deadlines, and due dates in one place.

2. Learn to manage your time

Time management is a critical part of being organized. If you aren't in control of your time, you can't be in control of your tasks.

Luckily, time management, like organization, is a learnable skill. Don't be afraid to try a few different techniques until you find the one that works for you:

• Time blocking: Time blocking is when you schedule out every moment of your day. This includes your meetings, tasks, and everything in between. Creating a detailed schedule gives you control over your calendar and awareness of how you're spending your time.

• Timeboxing: For each task, create a goal to finish it by a specific time. This prevents tasks from falling into the trap of Parkinson's Law, where work expands to fill the available time.

• The Pomodoro technique: The Pomodoro technique uses 25-minute work blocks bookended by 5-minute breaks. When you're in a Pomodoro, limit distractions and turn off notifications to focus solely on the task at hand.

• Eat the frog: Tackle your most difficult tasks first thing in the morning. This helps you take advantage of your most productive working hours to begin with a success.

By implementing time management, you can take control over your schedule and have more time for what matters most.

3. Practice Inbox Zero

Contrary to popular belief, Inbox Zero doesn't always mean having zero emails in your inbox. The concept is more about organizing your emails and reducing digital clutter so you can stay on top of important tasks and updates.

To apply Inbox Zero, set aside time every week or every day, as needed, to review and prioritize incoming messages. Apply simple rules that help move the process forward:

• Convert to tasks: If you use a work management platform, assign tasks as you read through messages

• Use shortcuts: Speed-read through messages and send quick responses as needed

• Archive or delete: Remove messages that don't require action

Each time you practice your Inbox Zero, it will be easier to replicate. Use a weekly calendar reminder or a daily alarm to stay on top of incoming messages.

4. Prioritize your most important work

There's a difference between work that makes you feel productive (busy work) and work that helps move your team and business forward. Identifying your most important work starts with your company's strategic plan and organization-wide OKRs.

Every task, no matter how small, should lead back to those larger, overarching goals. When you know how your work connects to company initiatives, you have the context to adjust deadlines and priorities as things change.

5. Delegate tasks

Outsourcing or delegating tasks allows you to focus on high-impact projects. Delegating can feel awkward, especially when you're handing off work to peers. But in reality, outsourcing tasks to the proper person is an act of trust and validation.

To delegate, start by identifying all tasks in your current workload. Then, determine which ones are the highest priority with an Eisenhower matrix, sorting tasks as:

• Important and urgent. This is your most important work. Assign these to yourself and prioritize anything in this bucket.

• Important but not urgent. These are valuable, but might not need to get done today. Schedule them out to ensure they get done.

• Not important but urgent. These are the to-dos to delegate. They're not important to you, but they absolutely must get done.

• Not important and not urgent. Remove completely. This is work for the sake of work.

If there's work in your "not important but urgent" category that someone else could do better, delegating is actually the best thing you can do.

6. Declutter your physical and virtual space

A clean, welcoming office space is energizing and exciting to walk into. When you clean up your desk so it's free of distractions, an organized workspace can reduce anxiety and improve mental clarity. Research shows that 40% of Americans describe their home as cluttered, highlighting the widespread challenge of maintaining organized spaces. The same could be said for digital clutter; all those unread emails and overdue tasks are the virtual equivalent of having stacks of past-due papers in your workspace.

Instead of letting things pile up until they become stressful or unmanageable, set aside time every week, quarter, or month for a routine decluttering session. To practice virtual decluttering, try:

• Reassigning any overdue tasks with new, relevant due dates.

• Reading through and clearing out your notifications.

• Practicing Inbox Zero.

• Time blocking your calendar to make room for more flow.

As you go through the process of decluttering, remind yourself that you're protecting your future self from unnecessary stress.

6 tips to organize project work

Organizing your to-dos is the first step to getting organized. After that, you'll need to organize project work. If you've never thought about how to organize your project work, these six tips can help you get started.

1. Create a place for everything

Aside from making your workplace more functional, having every item, both digital and physical, in its proper place saves you time and can boost productivity.

You can do this by organizing files and tasks within their appropriate projects. This works twofold: your team won't need to search endlessly for files, and you can reduce the need for debriefing meetings by pointing colleagues to the exact process or workflow they need.

To set up, create a project space with all of your team's relevant files, tasks, goals, and documents. You can use a work management platform like Asana to house all of that information in one place, including reference documents and templates.

2. Break down project deliverables

At its core, a project is a way to house all of the tasks and deliverables associated with a particular initiative. This can be a deadline-driven initiative, like an event or a product launch, or an ongoing process like an editorial calendar.

Regardless of what your team is working on, break project tasks into components small enough to assign to one person.

Here's why that matters: If a deliverable is shared equally among three people, who moves the work forward? Who tracks it? Who updates stakeholders when deadlines change? Instead, break project deliverables into smaller work items using a work breakdown schedule. Give each team member their own task so everyone knows who's doing what by when.

3. Back up your files

We've all been through that awful moment when a computer crash or software glitch causes you to lose all of your work. But more and more, cloud storage is making that a thing of the past. Many companies offer storage solutions for employees, so if you can, take advantage of them.

Start by creating a system for all your files. Pre-organize the space so it makes sense for you, adding in folders and subdivisions as needed. If you start backing up your files in mass uploads with no real organization, you're going to be in for a headache when you need to search for something specific down the road.

Make sure that wherever you work has an autosave feature, or that you routinely save your work. Then, set up automatic backups if you're able, or set reminders to back up everything when you finish a task and again at the end of the day.

4. Centralize status reports

Reporting can be one of the most manual and time-consuming parts of your job. We've all sat through a status meeting that could have been an email, plus, it takes a lot of time to collect data from multiple sources and manually compile it in a central place.

Instead, look for a way to report right where work happens. Consider using a project management tool with Universal Reporting to create reporting dashboards in the same space where you track work. Use these dashboards to generate project status reports that minimize meetings, keeping stakeholders up to date or allowing the team to review data on their own time.

5. Automate repeated tasks and processes

Did you know that the average worker spends 13% of their time on work that's already been completed? As a result, employees lose a whopping 236 hours to duplication each year.

An organization can help you cut down on manual, duplicative processes and give your team more time for work that matters. And one of the best ways to boost organization is with automation technology.

Automating tasks helps things get done when they're supposed to, which is critical since 26% of deadlines are missed each week. If you're new to automating, try starting with the basics:

• Use automation technology to automatically assign work to the right people.

• Shift and adjust due dates based on dependencies.

• Standardize manual processes with customizable project templates.

6. Track work in a central tool

When all of your team's work is organized in one central tool, you can see exactly who's doing what by when. This takes the guesswork out of planning because you know when tasks are completed, when it's your turn to jump in and move a project forward, and which items to prioritize first.

To get started, make sure all of your team's to-dos are in one place. Organize them so everyone has access to all tasks, and ask each person to update their work in real time.

You can take it one step further by setting up automated workflows that alert colleagues when it's their turn to step in and move the project forward. Workflows can trigger action steps and automatically assign deadlines, ensuring projects stay on track.

5 steps to organize across teams

The last and hardest step in getting organized is facilitating cross-team work. Each department has its own way of doing things, tools it prefers, and processes it's implemented over time. But most work gets done cross-functionally across multiple departments.

1. Add your favorite business tools

Context switching, moving quickly from one task or app to another, is a serious disruptor. Every time you switch, your brain has to adjust, sapping your energy and concentration.

The average worker switches between 10 and 25 apps per day. The effect is significant:

• 27% of workers say actions and messages are missed when switching apps

• 26% of workers say app overload makes them less efficient

You can reduce this mental strain through business integrations. Combining your favorite tools lets you access information from different sources, such as Salesforce or Google Docs, all in one central work management platform.

2. Break larger goals into smaller tasks

Large goals can feel overwhelming. When these big, hairy audacious goals aren't organized properly, your team might feel like they're impossible to achieve. But motivating workers is crucial, 39% of workers want to know that their work will add value to the company.

Connecting larger, big-picture goals to individual responsibilities shows your team that their work matters. For example, let's say your long-term goal is to grow your customer base by 300% over the next 5 years. Break it down into short-term goals, year by year, task by task:

Goal: Grow customer-base by 300% in 5 years

Yearly goal: Grow 30% by the end of the first year

Sub goals:

Increase the sales team by 25%

• Deploy an employee referral program and increase referrals by 5%

Launch 1 product feature quarterly

• Hire a customer success manager to communicate with the product

Boost marketing reach by 10%

• Hire 3 new team leads

• Schedule 300 social media posts

By breaking your goals down into actionable steps, you're ensuring that you pace yourself well to hit target deadlines and showing employees exactly how their daily tasks contribute to high-impact goals.

3. Track project dependencies

As a team, we depend on one another to do our own work. But what happens when something you're relying on gets delayed? Without an easy way to visualize dependencies, you don't know when work is delayed, and your team members don't know that their delay is affecting someone else.

Clearly tracking project dependencies helps reduce unknowns for everyone on the team. By tracking dependencies with project management software, you can ensure team members are notified when they're unblocked. And if something is delayed, task owners know exactly who to contact to get an updated due date.

4. Create reusable templates and reference guides

Even if it's something you do regularly, launching a new project can come with underlying stressors. There are a lot of details to consider, remembering every key stakeholder and task, for example, so it's easy to overlook an important element. The solution is a customizable project template that you can use and adapt to your specific project needs.

Templates and reference guides provide structure for recurring tasks, allowing you to track them and prevent duplication. They're an adaptable tool that can help you to work better and faster.

Why use templates?

• You're less likely to overlook small tasks since they're all tracked in one place.

• Templates are easy to change and adapt to lessons learned.

• Templates democratize project manager knowledge, making it accessible to everyone.

• They help new teams spin off existing initiatives.

5. Build a centralized information hub

Organizing your team's work often comes down to creating one centralized source of information. When you operate from a single pool of information, it reduces confusion for the entire team because each person knows what they're supposed to work on, when to do it, and where to get the tools to complete it.

Using project portfolio management, you can streamline work into centralized portfolios to get a bird's eye view of your programs and projects. This is the digital version of a whiteboard in the common space, everyone's work is listed and assigned to the appropriate team members, creating an active project space that can be adjusted and reported on in real-time.

How to build organizational habits that stick

Creating organizational systems is one thing. Maintaining them is another. The key to long-term organization is building habits that become second nature.

• Establish a daily routine: Set aside time at the beginning or end of each day to review your tasks, update your to-do list, and plan ahead. When you do this consistently, it becomes automatic.

• Review and adjust regularly: What works today may not work next month as your projects change. Schedule a weekly or monthly check-in to evaluate your systems.

• Be patient with yourself: Building new habits takes time. If you slip up, simply get back on track; progress matters more than perfection.

Getting organized helps you work smarter

It takes a bit of effort and time to implement organizing tips and simplify your life. But doing the upfront work to get more organized helps you down the road. With time, you'll create more space in your workday for focusing on the tasks you're best at or that bring you the most joy.

Ready to bring more organization to your team? Get started with Asana and see how a work management platform can help you track tasks, collaborate with your team, and keep everything in one place.

Frequently asked questions about getting organized