If you’re not organized, the service you provide for your clients and prospects is bound to drop dramatically in quality. Disorganization leads to forgetfulness and panic when you can’t find important documents and resources at a critical time. Your clients and prospects are expecting you to take care of them if they agree to do business with you. How can they expect you to take care of their needs when you can’t even handle your own day-​to-​day responsibilities? It’s time to get organized. And Stacy Sherman, writing for CustomerThink, offers some advice for sales reps on the subject:

1. Book Appointments for Yourself
2. Pay Attention to Energy Levels
3. Organize Your Inbox

How to Get Organized ASAP

Book Appointments for Yourself

You tend to take your appointments more seriously than free time that isn’t designated for any particular activity, right? If you think about it, that could be the reason why you’re sometimes late. In the morning, it's tempting to hit the snooze button or browse social media until the very last second. But that leaves you scrambling to have breakfast and coffee and arrive to the office on time. 

One way to get organized is to treat part of your morning as a scheduled appointment. Set daily reminders for yourself from the time you wake up to remind you about when it's time to stop browsing social media and make breakfast and maybe you should set another alert about when to leave home in order to get coffee from your favorite shop. This practice will make mornings less stressful and you’ll arrive at work on time and feeling as if your day is already on the right track.

Pay Attention to Your Energy Levels

While you may have a few tricks up your sleeve for how to get bursts of energy throughout the day (energy drinks, snacks, walking around, etc.), there’s bound to be certain times during the workday that you’re more productive. Pay attention to your energy levels for the next few days. Are you a morning person? Or do you get your burst of energy after getting back from lunch? When your energy levels are highest, you should schedule your sales meetings, cold calls, etc. Get organized by knowing when you’ll be most productive and plan your workday around those time periods.

Organize Your Inbox

Few people can maintain their email inboxes without putting conscious effort into the process. After all, you receive dozens of emails each day. Some are important messages from prospects, clients, and co-​workers/​management. Others are not, like ads and personal notes about where your friends are planning to go for happy hour after work. And some emails will continue to be important long after you’ve received them, but they could get lost in the sea of the new arrivals.

It’s time to get organized by creating folders in your inbox. Create folders with titles such as “To-​Do,” or “May Be Important Later,” or you can make folders specifically for messages from various top clients. You can also set rules so that messages from specific addresses or emails that you’re copied on are sent to a secondary section of your inbox that you can check after you’ve focused on the important new emails.