Keep a Current Roster of Important People at Your Desk

While the days of the box full of index cards as a database have gone by the way side, it is still important to have the contact information for "important" people handy. You might be tempted to simply keep the email addresses in your email management program but having an actual roster can be beneficial in numerous ways.

Depending on the work you do, a current roster could include coworkers, colleagues, vendors and suppliers, board members, and other companies, businesses, or organizations that you work with. Consider whether or not you need to have financial people (the banker, accountant, etc.) on your roster as well. Think of this available roster as the "inner circle" to your job world. If you were to not be able to show up for work and a stranger had to sit in your chair and do your job, who would they need to know how to contact in order to get the job done?

A handy and current roster allows you to function in an efficient and professional way. While it might seem like a superfluous waste of time to compile a roster when the contact information might be available in other places, having all the names, phone numbers, emails and affiliations in a handy, desk-side document makes good sense when you consider how quickly you will be able to access it. If your computer should crash, or you should need to work remotely, having the document in both computer file and hard copy will make it easy for you to have the information at your fingertips.

Once you have created a roster of important people and their contact information, be sure to update it periodically and make changes as you receive them. With the mobility and fast-paced industries many of us work in, keeping track of phone, email, job titles and the like can be overwhelming. It is far better to make the changes quickly to your contact roster as you hear about them than to try to save them up and make changes once or twice a year. In order to make sure the document remains relevant and valuable, it must be current and complete.