Wrapping up the Workweek
Seven Steps to Close Your Home Office for the Weekend
Our team at Jambalaya Group largely work remotely all the time and we have a number of procedures in place to stay abreast of where everyone is on their work process. Whatever your practice procedure is, we recommend you start with that process.
This is more focused as a resource list for each person individually to wrap up their work and leave with a sense of well being that you can enjoy some time off and pick back up on Monday.
How long this takes will vary, but if you do this each week, it will become a more streamlined routine. It allows you to have clarity about the work you completed for the week and capture what needs to be done when you get back to work on Monday. It helps keep things from falling through the cracks and should give you a sense of accomplishment as well.
1. E-MAIL INBOX TO ZERO
It’s a great feeling to see it go to zero, even for just a minute. This task is not as daunting as it may sound. One thing I appreciate is when I send an email directly from the Ameriprise CRM it is automatically part of their record. Also, you don’t have to do all the tasks related to the emails to get to zero, you simply have to mark the red flag and save them in a subfolder to refer to when you create your Task List.
I’m not an advocate of email bankruptcy, where you ignore or delete everything that is more than a certain number of days old. I think there is a lot of good documentation in our emails, so I want to file them and make them easily accessible.
Having a strategy that is thought through and then executed through Outlook Rules will assure that important messages get your priority attention, junk mail gets deleted and your inbox is managed.
Check out this article for some ideas for streamlining this process.
2. VOICEMAIL TO ZERO
I often find this to be a great task to do when I am waiting. I don’t want to keep reference material here so, as soon as I listen to the message, I like to make the note to the proper record and delete it.
3. INBOX IN ORDER (OR TO ZERO)
If there is something someone left on your desk that you haven’t looked at, take a look now. Decide how and when you will process it.
4. RECAPS FOR WEEK DONE
When you look over the calendar for the week and send any notes or complete any reports related to your week, it will remind you of tasks that still need to be completed.
5. CLEAR YOUR DESK
I still have paper files, even though most everything we do is electronic these days. My office is very presentable, but I do have help with that. If it’s up to you, try to organize your space so you feel comfortable, as well as meeting compliance rules to avoid having confidential client data out, especially when you are working from home.
6. UPDATE YOUR TASK LIST FOR NEXT WEEK
You can now reference your red-flagged emails, the info left undone from this week that you recalled when looking at your recaps, and any tasks left from the inbox and clearing your desk.
7. GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK!
I can feel even better about some well-earned time off when I know that I have my work in order and waiting for me after I’m refreshed.
This may seem like a lot of work, but the time it takes when you don’t do it can be longer, more costly, and may give you that nagging feeling that you should be working, even when you shouldn’t be.
I hope you will enjoy your weekend. I appreciate all the hard work everyone is doing. Changing your routine can be disruptive, but it doesn’t mean they can’t actually be better.
If you want us to connect with you about training on any of your technology to support your Wrapping up the Weekend process, contact Jasen Braun.
About the Author
Bernie DeLaRosa, CFP®, ChFC®, CRPC®, CLU®, APMA®, CASL®, BFA™
Managing Business Consultant
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