Home Sweet Home Office

  2008-08-25 19:54:48Organizing the paper in your home office is essential. Paper clutter increases lost time, lost energy and lost opportunities. The urge to leave can out power the urge to stay. Who wants to work among piles of paper that represent chaos?

My last couple posts speak about sorting papers. Papers that are already filed into a system that works can be ignored for now. I am speaking specifically about uncontrolled piles of paper. Yes, even those that you already know what is in them.

I cannot tell you how many clients (I am a professional organizer) have told me that they know exactly what papers were in which pile. I can tell you that almost 100% of the time they were mistaken. I continually heard “I’ve been looking for that” when I finally convinced them to sort the piles. Small business people usually found lost checks and some were behind on their billing due to lost invoices and lost orders. Individuals usually found unpaid bills that had already accrued late fees and interest. 

So far I have explained that papers should first be sorted by year. Then each year (starting with the most recent) needs to be sorted into a Desk/File Sorter. Have you decided whether to sort by number versus letter? Remember that I told you that it depends on what type of paper or receipt you are working with at the time. Also, keep it simple because you may need to find something quick. This is a work in progress and life goes on during the process.

TIP: Do not spend a lot of time trying to decide what papers to keep and what to do with them. Just sort them into the Desk/File Sorter. Decisions can stop progress. Just sort for now - I will help you make decisions later.

Once you have the papers filed into the Desk/File Sorter you have the choice to leave them there for now or to include them into your existing filing system. I suggest that you leave them there for now. I have three Sorters in service right now in my home office.

A filing system gets unruly quickly. The folders fill up fast and before you know it the drawer will not close. Can you guess what our next lessons are going to be? You got it. Naming files is the key to keeping a filing system healthy. Sometimes just starting over is easier than re-working a filing system.

I will tell you my opinion and you can decide whether you agree with me. Since the next steps towards home office organization are huge ones I will get into it in my next post. Keep working and get caught up on unfinished projects. There is plenty of work ahead.