According to Bing’s online dictionary, the definition of Standardize is:
Make standard: to remove variations and irregularities in something and make all types or examples of it the same or bring them into conformity with one another
Whenever you standardize a process, you invite efficiency and higher productivity. In the office, there are a wide variety of places where you can standardize, including when you create a new Task using Outlook, Google or another program.
Here’s an example of some Speaking Leads that are in my current Task List. I’ve blurred out the names of the companies for privacy purposes. As you can see, each one begins with the same phrase “Speaking Lead” followed by the company’s name. When I’m looking at my Master Task list, I can quickly see how many prospects I’ve got in my sales funnel at any given time.
This screen shot shows you my Master Task List. You can see that I’ve sorted them alphabetically and that start dates are also listed.
Standardization reduces the amount of time you spend looking for things. If you adopt the same naming convention for a new Task, then you’ll know exactly where to look for something when you need it. And that leads to the simplest definition of what it means to be organized:
