subject: Getting Organized [print this page] Last month was National Clean Out Your Files Month and National Home Based Business Week! Getting organized concerns more than just a clean counter or table. Organization is all about a clear mind - acknowledging who you are and finding personalized options for your situation.
In celebration of these outrageously entertaining holidays, listed here are my three getting organized paper management tips to kick start you:
1. Divide and conquer:
Have a very specific area for your Action/To Do papers. Have a filing cabinet near by for those you need to file. And, have that recycling container and shredder ready and raring to accept more!
2. Process papers on a daily basis:
Why do we brush our pearly whites everyday? If we didnt, you'd suffer all sorts of maladies - not to mention that people wouldnt want to be around us. Quite simply, life would get miserable. Thats the same thing that will happen if we let our papers pile up - life will get miserable. It sounds counterintuitive, however the more you hate paper, the better it will be for you to process your papers daily to ensure youre handling a half-inch stack of paper instead of a foot-high pile by the end of the month. Brush your teeth daily; clean your documents daily.
3. Set up your filing system by thinking about what documents you need to retrieve:
For many of us, we dont really need to recover a lot of papers. We just keep them for tax reasons. For these kinds of papers, toss them into an accordion or holding file system with January - December slots. Easy as pie. If youre preserving them for memories, drop them into a file or box for each individual in the household. For your documents you need to recover, separate the stack of papers on your desk into categories. Each one of those categories should become a file. Getting organized will reduce time to find hidden papers and help reduce stress.
