Last week, I introduced you to my favorite office products to keep myself organized. I hope you were able to incorporate one or some into your work routine. I promise; they will help you keeps tasks and projects in orders.

So this week, I want to share with you some tips on how to keep all those paper organized. I once heard that we would become a paperless society, but unfortunately, that does not look to be happening anytime soon. So, what do you do with all those reports, proofs, emails, notes, and memos? Here are some ideas:

1. Start by organizing papers into piles, sorted my job, task, project, etc. so that the papers in each pile or grouping have some sort of connection, whether it be project- or task-oriented or whatever works best for you.
2. Once all papers are sorted into individual piles, go through the piles to make sure you do not have duplicate information. Ever printed out an email and its reply only to discover the reply contained the original email? If so, keep the reply and recycle the original. This will help to cut down on the clutter and allow you to find what you are looking for faster.
3. Organize the remaining papers in each pile in an order that makes the most sense for your purposes, i.e. chronologically, priority, phases, etc. To further help with your organization, try taking each section and color coding it. For instance, put all information that is a top priority in a red Project Folder, to symbolize its urgency.
4. Now, take all those sections that you prioritized and place them into one master folder. Use Write-on Project Folders or Locking Project Folders with Index Tabs. Label each folder in a large, legible writing or printing, so that you know exactly what the contents of that folder it. If you use binders to store your papers, apply the same organization principles, but use Top Load or Side Load Sheet Protectors with a Hook and Loop Flap. Each sheet protectors can easily hold each section, and are available in colors, for easy color coding.
5. Now, store all folders, binders, etc. on your desk, in your drawers, in a file cabinet, or wherever is the most place for its accessibility. If a task is something you perform on a daily basis, it is probably best to keep in the most accessible location in your office, meaning someplace close to where you sit. You don’t want to have to get up and walk across your office everyday to grab that file.

Hope those tips help! See you next week!

Tags: Organization, paperless, project folders, sheet protectors

This entry was posted on Monday, November 3rd, 2008 at 8:22 am and is filed under Organization, Report Covers and Project Folders, Sheet Protectors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.