Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 32 | Page 39

Workspace that is clutter-free Clutter causes stress. Lack of organisation impairs motivation and state of mind. To think clearly, stay motivated and be productive and efficient, you have to get rid of the clutter. Luckily, this can be as easy as removing unnecessary papers and items and setting up an effective organisation system. Tip – Cleaning the desk every evening/ night after turning off the computer keeps it clean. High speed Internet and network router If you’re working with a poor Internet connection, your efficiency is likely to be suffering. Besides being a source of frustration, poor connections take your attention away from your work and increase your likelihood of becoming distracted by other things. It is important to review your different Internet service provider options and decide which is best for your home office. You’ll need a network router if you or your family use more than one laptop or computer in your home. To ensure that your network router can meet your Wi-Fi connectivity needs, you’ll have to consider the types of devices you’ll be using like www.intelligentcio.com “ THE DIGITISATION TREND HAS TURNED REMOTE WORKING FROM A DREAM INTO REALITY. cellphones, tablets or smart TVs, as well as the size of the area that requires coverage. Tip – When buying a router don’t look for the highest performance possible. You should only pay for the features that you need. If you already have a router but the signal isn’t strong enough in your home office, look into a wireless range extender. It will pick up the weak signal, boost it and retransmit it. Document scanner Document scanners allow you to go paperless, which can improve your home office efficiency in multiple ways: by eliminating the distracting clutter of papers, by allowing you to organise documents digitally and by speeding up workflows. While you will need to maintain a physical organisation system for important original documents, digitising other documents both decreases the number of file cabinets you’ll need and reduces the amount of time you’ll spend searching for documents. It also minimises the risk of data loss, since you won’t have to worry about misplacing key paperwork. On average, people spend a week searching for lost papers and other items every year and that time eats into productivity. Document scanners can speed up certain workflows, such as forms processing. Whereas manually entering data is time- consuming, and mailing documents halts the workflow altogether, scanning and emailing documents take just minutes. Tip – When buying a home office scanner that is efficient and enhances your productivity, look at a feature rich scanner that is easy to set up and scan quickly as soon as it powers on. A wireless scanner can be put in any place you might need it and there are scanners in the market with a flatbed for scanning passports which is a very convenient feature to have. INTELLIGENTCIO 39 39