This week I will be presenting my “Paper, Paper….Everywhere” series. In this five part series, I’ll present methods to get a hold of all the paper that you deal with everyday. I hope you find the information helpful.
Part 1 – Get It Organized!
I am embarrassed to say, but a few weeks ago, this was my desk.
It seems that my desk has become the dumping ground for all paper in the house. Incoming mail, papers from school, papers from work, articles for vacation and garden ideas, magazines, library books, newspapers, etc., etc., …they all seem to end up in one place – my desk. Does this happen to you too? It is amazing how quickly it builds up and how soon it can become overwhelming.
This week I’ll talk about how to stay on top of all of the paper that drifts into your daily life. And the first step I recommend is getting organized.
When your desk or kitchen counter or dining room table or wherever all your paper ends up looking like my desk did, the first step to getting on top of the situation is to get organized. Here is what I suggest:
- Instead of trying to clean in the area that is messy, take everything to a neutral and clean location. I would suggest a kitchen counter, a portable table, a conference room. Anywhere you have room to spread out and thoroughly sort through everything.
- Sort through the stacks. Create appropriate piles; action items, things to be filed, trash/recycle pile, things to keep, etc.
By taking all the paper that needs to be sorted to a neutral location, you won’t be tempted to work on them during the sorting process. In addition, a large work space will give you area needed to correctly sort each item and allow you to place each item in the correct sorted pile.
After only about half an hour, some time spent at my dining room table and my filing system (I”ll talk about this tomorrow), my desk now looks like this:
Stay tuned for four more parts on how you can get the upperhand on all the paper that enters our lives. Hope you have a great week!
Amy
Time Saver/Time Management Guru
Finding more minutes in your day
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“This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it. “
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
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