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Conquer Your Paper Chaos
by Sherry Borsheim
Stress is quickly becoming an epidemic in North America. Today, 75 - 90
per cent of all doctor visits are stress related. In addition, the
average person spends 150 hours of time wasted on searching for lost
documents per year.
Sitting down at a disorganized desk can immediately increase your stress
level before the workday has even started. And we all know that this is
not the time of the day to start taking on additional stress. That will
happen easily enough throughout the course of your day.
The start of each day is the time to feel fresh and confident in your
ability to make progress on your daily tasks. This feeling of purpose
comes easily with an organized workspace. Disorganization, on the other
hand, washes all good intentions away in confusion and stress, and sets
the tone for the rest of the workday. Disorganization is actually
deferred decisions.
Left unchecked, these piles of paper can become mountains of stress,
leaving you completely overwhelmed and swimming in chaos. By this point,
you may not even know how or where to start with the de-stressing
process.
Here are a few tips for reducing stress through organization.
If Paper Chaos is your biggest challenge:
1 Take all of the paper piles you have on your desk, counter or table
and place it in a box.
2 Pick up the first piece of paper and apply the FAST principle™ - ask
yourself if you are going to File, Act, Schedule or Toss this piece of
paper? If it’s file, then write trigger word(s) in the top right hand
corner of the paper. Put it in a pile called “File”. If you need to take
action, write out all the action steps on the top right corner of the
paper or use a post-it-note and put it in a pile labeled “Action”. If
you need to schedule this into your calendar then write it into your
calendar and toss the paper. When you’ve sorted the entire box you
should have 3 piles – File, Act, Schedule and I’ll assume that your
wastebasket is overflowing!
3 Once sorted, start with the action pile and begin to handle each piece
of paper - filing it in your action files or scheduling the next action
into your calendar. You can also use the Tickler system to file these
into on the day you plan to take action (for more information on the
tickler system visit www.simplyproductive.com).
4 Next go to the filing pile and file them into your appropriate files
using The Paper Tiger software or your traditional A – Z filing methods.
Use the 2” rule – if a file is larger than 2”, break it down into
smaller files (for more information on The Paper Tiger software visit
www.simplyproductive.com).
5 Acquire a copy of the new ...”Conquer Your Chaos” workbook from
www.simplyproductive.com so that you can keep a consistent handle on
your paper chaos and learn additional tips on how to get organized in
your office.
If Electronic Chaos is your biggest challenge:
To start, block off at least an hour in your day planner before taking
the following steps.
1. Review your computer files/documents and make a backup of all the
documents that you know you will not refer to again (such as draft
documents that have now been completed, files with out-of-date
information or duplicate information in different file locations). Once
a backup has been created, delete all of these electronic files.
2. Remove any programs that you don't use. To do so, select
.Start/Control Panel/Add or Remove Programs. Simply highlight the unused
programs and click remove.
3. Run Scandisk weekly and create a backup.
4. Make space in Internet Explorer by removing temporary files. To do
so, go to .Tools/Internet Options/Temporary Internet Files and click
Delete Files. Delete all offline content.
5 Take a few minutes to organize your files within your e-mail program.
Create these additional files: action; read; waiting for a response; and
templates. Each morning, delete unnecessary e-mails (spam/junk), respond
to any e-mail that will only take two minutes or less to respond to,
then move all other e-mails to their designated files, leaving a
completely empty inbox. Then schedule time each day to deal with those
e-mails.
6. Use only one calendar, either electronic or paper. A good idea is to
use an electronic calendar that can be easily synced with a handheld
electronic organizer, such as a PDA, on a daily basis.
Whatever you do to Conquer Your Chaos around the office or home, don't
over schedule. Delegate tasks when appropriate - you don't have to do
everything. Leave time free in your calendar for the unexpected and
perhaps for a break now and then.
About the author
Sherry Borsheim is the president of
Simply
Productive and helps businesses with their office productivity &
efficiency and you’ll find anything you file in 5 seconds or less! Her
productivity team also helps homeowners organize their living spaces so
they can get rid of chaos and stress. Her productivity and organizing
articles will give you back your fun time so you can finally get out
enjoying whatever you love to do best! Sherry is also the author of
Conquer Your Chaos, fast forward to office efficiency.
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