The Eastern Way: Fundamental #15 – Be Organized

This fundamental was written by Noelia Baez-Pena, a documentation specialist at Eastern Funding. Noelia started at the company in September 2014. Noelia graduated with a Bachelor’s of Business Administration with a concentration in Management in May 2014.

Fundamental #15 — Be Organized — “Start every day with a plan. Use systems and processes that enhance your ability to consistently perform at a high level while managing a multitude of issues for our customers – both external and internal.”

At Eastern Funding, the pace can get very fast (even though I can only speak from a docs person’s point of view). We are urgently trying to meet deadlines and honor commitments. I am a true believer that as long as you are organized and create a system to stay on top of things throughout the day, you are set up for success.

We deal directly with customers, vendors, manufacturers and insurance agents for more than 30 deals at once. Internally, we also work with the loan officers and credit analyst responsible for those deals. It is not an easy task, and we can have a very difficult time staying on top of it all. Everyone has his or her own way of staying organized, but below are some ways I keep on top of my work:

• Have an agenda/planner where you can write down all of your tasks/follow ups. Try to prepare an agenda a week in advance. I like to know ahead of time what is funding and when is funding as well as what documents I need to get out and when. That way when I have my backlog meetings on Mondays, I have a clear understanding of my log to explain to the funding officer.
• Organize files in alphabetical order for easy access. When I need to quickly locate a file, I can count on finding it by the company’s name.
• Use Outlook to organize tasks that need to be done or followed up on throughout the day. Of course, things always come up and may need immediate attention. Outlook makes it convenient to prioritize by dragging and dropping items to the top of your list. It is also helpful documenting which items are completed or postponed. That way you can report on them accordingly.

I hope that these examples of how I stay organized are of help to everyone. If you have your own system of staying organized, please share! Maybe we can all benefit from it as well.

Have a great and organized week!