One of the best ways to organize information for those you support, and therefore those who might be sitting at your desk one day completely clueless, is a little known document called the Desk Manual.....

Desk Manual?! What is that?!

A desk manual is just that, a document that gives a temporary replacement enough information to be productive. After all, every company has their own way of doing things and ensuring a temporary replacement is able to work effectively speaks volumes about the person who left the manual behind "just in case".

Formatting your Manual

If you're a ringed binder kind of Administrative Professional, then by all means, go ahead. We've seen them in notebooks, binders, and spiral bound books, the format you decide to use is generally up to you, but here's where it shouldn't be:

In the computer. At least not exclusively.

Why not? Because in most cases your replacement won't even have a log in password. This is one case where electronic isn't better, though you should certainly keep your master document in electronic format for easy revision (And if this will be your first Desk Manual, there will be revisions aplenty!).

Use tabs, title pages, and table of contents. You can make your Desk Manual as elaborate as you like, however, what is really important is that the information it holds is clearly organized and easy to cross-reference.