Paperwork at home . . . what are some good organiazational tips?
Question:I have so much paperwork at home . . . bills, insurance junk, financial stuff. What is the best way to organize it all. What are some good label headers? This is just for home paperwork not my business stuff.
Answers:
Do the following 10 steps:
1, Hunt up all the paper that you have. If you have too much, then hunt things in one area or room, then do the remaining steps for that room or area only. When you've finished the list of steps, repeat for each room or area until the house is finished.
2. Dump everything on a table.
3, Sort into three piles: keep, trash, and decide later.
4. Get rid of the trash right now.
5, Put the decide later stuff in a separate file (an accordion file is good, or — if there is too much — a file box that is KEPT OPEN (till you have dealt with things). Label this accordian file or box as "decide later." Move it to a corner of the room where you are working, but keep it in plain view as a reminder that you have to deal with it.
6. You now have the "keep" pile. Put the pile on the right side of the table from where you are sitting (assuming that you are right-handed). Take three file folders, accordian files, or boxes (depending on how much there is to deal with) and label them, placing them in this order from the left side of the table onward: "File," "Schedule for Action," and "Action Now."
7. Go through the "Keep" pile one piece of paper at a time. Decide what action is needed for each. If you can deal with things immediately (ie., as soon as you have finished sorting that room), put the item in the "Action Now" file. If other action is needed, put it in Scheule for action". If you are going to act, not now, put it in the "schedule for action" file, and if you don't need to act but have to keep the the material for the record or want to keep it for remembereing or later reference) put it in the "For Filing" folder.
8. You now have three files. First, immediately go through the "Act Now" file and do it — e.g., a note to phone somebody (phone them), a bill to pay (pay the bill). Try to do all of these things (it shouldn't be a huge file), but if you can't, then your action is to put it in the "Schedule for Action" file. Proceed till the "Act Now" file is empty.
9. Have your calendar, DayTimer, or whatever schedule you have (if you don't have a scheduler, get one) and turn to the "Schedule Action" now. Take each piece of paper and do two things: enter it in the scheduler for the date when you will move it to the Act Now file and deal with it. And make a pencil note of that date on the upper right corner. When you've finished this, sort the papers in the file in the order of dates.
10. Put the two finished file folders aside, and quickly go through the "For Filing" folder. You want to get a general idea of the range of contents. The create separate files organized by topic, emphasizing use (e.g., tax records, payment records, contacts, or whatever is meaningful for you in terms of actin-oriented later use). Do a half dozen folders with title and then start filling them with appropriate material. If you come across something new that can't fit in a folder you have, make a new folder. If you are getting too many folders, consider whether labels can be changed and two folders can be combined without loss.
When all of this is finished, for one room or area, repeat the process, starting with the paper search in another roomm or area. Process these new papers as before, adding them eventually to the appropriate folders.
This seems complicated, but once this job has been done, you can keep from having to do it again by taking new notes and papers every day and adding them to your file system.
One refinement is that if you see that there are very large amounts of papers and things to do in your "Scheduled Action" folder, it will be worthwhile looking into David Allen's "Getting Things Done" and the 43 folders technique that he advocate and many people with heavy loads use to organize their lives and their paper. Wikipedia has a good article on this, with useful summaries and links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/getting_thi...
Get a portable hanging file system (either a box-like one, or a wire one on wheels); Hang some bright colored files and get some of those see through, bright plastic clasp files. That way the system can go with you where ever you are working on stuff and the colors are cheerful & fun. Check out www.thecontainerstore.com
For labels I would use something like: Pending bills; paid bills, household items, to -do, tax records, ...they can even be color coded.
I scan in whatever I don't need the actual piece of paper for, then store it on the computer. I have a folder called Home, then inside that a folder called Office where all the paperwork goes.
That folder has lots of subfolders - Spreadsheets, Taxes (with a folder for each year where I download them after I submit them online), Insurance (with subfolders for Life, Medical & Dental, Automobile, whatever else) Financial (with folders for retirement plans, advice, whatever suits your needs), Owners Manuals (with folders for different categories such as Workshop, Kitchen, Fixtures, etc.). You get the idea by now I'm sure. This is much easier than filing tons of papers when you don't actually need the hard copy. Under spreadsheets I have workbooks for all kinds of things, from paystubs to records of what books I own to detailed decorating records for the house. If I just need the data off of a piece of paper I type it into a spreadsheet and shred the paper.
Instead of investing in file cabinets and filing materials, just pick up a simple scanner and a shredder. It's so much easier to find things that way too.
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