The groundhog did his best quadruple take in Louisiana this year. Though our friends to the north still have snow bearing down on them, it finaaaaaaaaaaaaally feels like spring has arrived. It is time to restring those fishing rods, pack away your sweaters, and get the yard whipped into shape for crawfish boils and barbeques.

Every home needs a good cleaning each spring. As the warm, fuzzy feeling of accomplishment washes over you, don’t forget that businesses need a thorough sprucing up as well. If gathering information is like herding cats, or your paper usage is keeping the logging company from Ferngully in business, now is the time to rein in all the costs and lost productivity.

Spring Cleaning Tips for your business

Here are a few pointers to cut the clutter and give you the warm and fuzzies all over again.

1.       Scan your documents

Unless you travel back in time a few decades, you absolutely have a digital filing system of some sort. Take your time machine for a spin a few decades into the future, you’d be hard-pressed to find a filing cabinet jammed packed with paper. This moment in time is that awkward middle period where businesses are holding candlelight vigils for their paper collections and setting them free.

Ghost your paper documents by scanning them and never, ever look back. As a divorce attorney for businesses and their paper collections, trust me when I say that the breakup gets easier as time goes on.

2.       Get your digital house in order

A content management system is like a home in a lot of ways. Normal humans have the always-clean rooms like the living room, kitchen and main bathrooms. These are high traffic areas that co-workers and guests use (and judge). Somedays these areas experience higher-than-usual traffic and things get out of order, but you have the “good” wine and a method to rectify the chaos for the glorious time when your home is once again devoid of guests.

Next, you have those low-traffic areas that only you see like bedrooms, laundry rooms, and garages. These require less maintenance since fewer eyeballs - including your own - are on them. These rooms are relatable to content that, while important, is not accessed very often. Be careful that these areas don’t get out of hand.

Last, we visit the leper of the office, the one that requires the most elbow grease. I am talking about that secret stash of Word docs, PDFs, and who knows what that you call a “documents” folder. Close your eyes… can you visualize the documents in that lagniappe folder? Now think about that junk drawer in your kitchen or that 4 feet of reachable-from-the-ladder space in your attic.

Tidy up your digital work space with a records management plan. If you need help with your office’s records management plan, we can make you shine like a diamond. If you don’t have a system to manage records, we have that too.

“Have a place for everything and keep the thing somewhere else; this is not a piece of advice, it is merely a custom.” - Mark Twain. He’s right. That custom causes a lot of unnecessary moaning and groaning for businesses. Once you give your paper documents the old heave-ho and get your digital ducks in a row this spring, you might just find yourself doing some actual business instead of searching for documents.