The top 10 steps to conquering paperwork
The greatest barrier to executive effectiveness often is personal disorganization. Although there is more to personal organization than handling paperwork, the following steps can be a start in the right direction. You’ll like the way your office looks. I guarantee it.
Step 1: Clear everything off the top of your desk, and empty all desk drawers.
Step 2: Discard items you’ll never use again, from the promotional pencils you’ve accumulated to obsolete correspondence. Clean your desk, inside and out.
Step 3: Place only essential items on your desktop. This can include your computer, daily schedule, telephone, to-do list and blank pad of paper.
Step 4: Replace items in desk drawers and credenza according to frequency of use. Items used most often should be closest at hand.
Step 5: Create a paper-handling system that embraces the principle of handling something only once. This should apply to 90 percent of the paper that comes across your desk. Stephanie Winston’s system — TRAF — works well: Toss it, refer it to someone else, act on it now or later, and file it.
Step 6: For papers and tasks you’ll go through later, create a tickler file. In your desk’s file drawer, put 12 folders or dividers for January through December, and 31 folders for the days of the month. If you put off acting on a document, decide when you will handle it. If it is more than a month away, put the document in the folder for that month. If it is later in the month, put it in the folder for that day. Note on your calendar for that day your intention to handle it, followed by a “T” for tickler. On the first day of the next month, distribute documents from that month’s tickler file across the days according to when you’ve decided to act on them.
Step 7: Prioritize goals and place them on your to-do list. Rank tasks 1 through 4: 1 is important and urgent, 2 is important but not urgent, 3 is urgent but not important, and 4 is routine.
Step 8: Fill out the next day’s to-do list the evening before and place it in front of you on your desk so it’s the first thing you see. Arrange your day to tackle important and urgent matters first.
Step 9: Empty your inbox and mail container at the same time each day. Employ the TRAF system consistently.
Step 10: Clear surfaces in your office each Friday before leaving for the weekend, applying TRAF here as well. Complete your Monday to-do list. Leave the office, and do not think about work until Monday.
