It seems like creating the filing system – or the act of filing – is one of the biggest headaches people face.
Here’s how it usually works: a piece of paper arrives in your office. You look at it. You set it aside. Later, while you’re checking email for the sixteenth time that hour, the paper catches your eye again. Maybe this time you decide to do something with it. If you’re really on the ball, you’ll make a note of what you did with the paper on the paper. You set it aside. Twelve days later, a huge stack of papers perched precariously on the corner of your desk cascades like a waterfall onto the floor. In the mess down there, you see the paper again and mutter to yourself, “I was looking for that!” And then you leave to meet friends for lunch.
Accurate, yes?
In my nearly eight years of organizing business owners, I’ve see this happen over and over.
People are overwhelmed with paper.
Why?
Because they don’t know what to DO with it.
Here’s the answer: Most people get the same “types” of paper entering their office regularly. If you can figure out the routine and pattern for the incoming paper, it becomes VERY easy to create a filing system to manage it all. To know where it goes, to give it a home, and to manage the flow of paper into and out of your office.
It becomes easy to know what to toss, recycle, archive, or shred, too.
Not sure what your pattern is? Email me to help you figure it out – finding routine, pattern, and order is my superpower.