Now that you've got your desktop cleaned off, it's time to tackle those
piles of papers. I'm assuming you have piles of papers that have become
unmanageable, otherwise you likely would not be reading this column. Believe
it or not, paper piles are primarily a time management issue, and only
secondarily an organizing issue. Take a look at one of your piles and
think back to when that pile began to grow. You might have thought, "I
don't have time to deal with these papers right now, I'll just set them
aside and take care of them later." But the time has not yet arrived,
and without some help, the time may never arrive.
You may be surprised to learn that taking the time
to get those piles organized and filed will save you minutes even hours
later when you need to find something. How many times have you rifled
through stack after stack of the wrong papers trying to find an important
document for your taxes or insurance company? Who has that kind of time
to waste? Let's try to make some sense of those piles.
If you've been reading the past several weeks of
this column, you'll know about the method suggested to clean off your
desktop by setting up temporary and permanent action files. If you haven't
read the columns, I suggest that you do. They are archived at http://www.ancestry.com/learn/.
Last week's column, especially, will explain the theory about setting
up files using a numbering system rather than an alphabetical system.
It's very likely that your current filing system is set up alphabetically.
If that system works well for you, then you just need to take the time
to file your papers. But, I'm willing to bet that your filing system
isn't working for you, which is why you have piles of paper scattered
about.
There are many reasons why filing systems become
outdated and unusable, which, it turn, leads to the proliferation of
paper piles:
--Individual files become unwieldy over time without
being culled for no-longer-usable papers.
--File folder labels are too generic, such as "insurance" instead of
"health insurance," "life insurance," "car insurance." Files that are
generic tend to accumulate lots of papers, which increase the amount
of time you spend looking for papers within them.
--Many papers have no home in the system because the system hasn't kept
up with lifestyle changes. As you have added new credit cards or cars,
you haven't added folders to correspond with the new paperwork.
--If your filing system is used by more than just you, there's a good
chance that files are labeled according to what made the most sense
to the person that created the system. Those labels may not make sense
to the other people that use the system. Before I switched to a numeric
system, my husband and I had difficulty because I had labeled the file
that contained all the information on our cars, "Car." He tried to find
the file under A for "Automobile" and came up empty. This is an example
of what can happen in any filing system when it's used by multiple people.
In next week's column, I'll discuss setting up
your reference files so they can work better for you, and those who
use your system.
Get It Together
