[Photo by kowitz via Flicker]
I can’t get rid of paper. Some utility companies just refuse to offer e-bills. I get insurance statements and EOBs. Honestly, I still get all kinds of crap in my paper mailbox.
Since I was old enough to care what happened to mail after I opened it, I’ve had some kind of scheme for keeping up with it. And at the end of every scheme’s life cycle, I run into the same brick wall conclusion.
Filing cabinets are sideways trash cans.
Stuff goes in. It sits there for years. And it usually doesn’t come out until it’s time to dump it in a waste bin.
If you’re like me – and I’m going to be super presumptuous and say you are since you’re still reading – you’ve probably spent much more effort creating and maintaining paper filing systems than those systems have paid you back in efficiency and saved time.
I mean, seriously. How many times a year do you actually go to your paper file for information? I hardly ever do. But, I do sometimes need to get stuff.
Paper, effort, you
The effort spent filing things should be proportional to the frequency you access your files.
Wha? That’s just me trying to think of a quotable, smart way of saying this:
If you go to your paper file a lot, finding things quickly is valuable. If you go there a handful of times per year, it’s okay if you have to dig for a while each time. Make sense? Hope so.
Try this method on for size:
- Buy the biggest, deepest-pocketed accordion file folder you can find at your local office store.
- Label one of those crevasses with the current year.
Stop. Put the label maker away. Seriously… set it down, and Back. A. Way.
Breathe
Hey you, still with me? Cool. Don’t worry: next year, you can label the next crevasse in line.
If you’re used to thinking that a paper filing system isn’t worth a damn unless it has monthly folders, then this probably sounds like a cop out. It is. And that’s why it works.
If filing is easy, it happens. If it’s hard, paper forms windrows on your kitchen island. In fact, let’s just call this “kitchen island zero.” It’s inbox zero for your paper-based world.
When mail arrives, process the hell out of it. Make it gone:
- Shred junk
- Archive stuff you may need in the annual bucket
- Jot down tasks (todos) for actionable mail
Partitioning as a service
The paper tragedy in everyone’s life is different, so you may need some extra differentiation. Maybe you need one or two extra divisions. But I highly recommend partitioning your paper files no more frequently than annually.
Annual archives just work for me. I’ve found that I spend almost the same amount of time looking for a piece of paper in an aggregate annual bucket than I do looking through monthly folders. Why? Because half the time I don’t even remember what month I should be looking in anyway.
It’s sorta like having a bulging sidebar of email labels (tags) that you never use.
Just try it and see if you like it. Start simple. Add complexity only when needed (that proportional thing again).
Note: I will likely get a few emails about using a scanner to go totally paperless. I flirt with that workflow every so often, but never implement it for various reasons. If I do, you’ll hear from me about it.
{ 7 comments }
Eddie
Must disagree with you here, at least in part.
First, everything that CAN be paperless I make so. This includes most all of my recurrent bills. Passwords and other info that I need to know and remember and find goes into 1 Password. Notations go into Evernote. Everything.
Next, paper that must be kept goes in a heavy duty, smooth rolling, easy to use four drawer file cabinet that is within swivel distance of my desk. The top drawer is ONLY for hospital privileges and stuff related to my telepsychiatry job. I have privileges in about thirty hospitals, and this stuff MUST be tracked consistently.
The other three drawers are used for anything else that I really want to keep. The kicker here is that I use the “first realistic and memorable word that comes to mind” technique for filing. Insurance, car, wills, MacBook White. I love my label maker, and in good GTD fashion I keep a fresh stack of folders at arm’s length at all times.
I also religiously purge these bottom three drawers once a year, usually during the Christmas holidays. If it’s unnecessary, makes no sense, no longer applies, or I don’t care any more, it gets shredded.
That’s the way I roll.
:)
Greg
Greg, I think I’m okay with this workflow not holding up for a telepsychiatry gig. :)
I also agree with you that it makes sense to make things paperless when possible. In other words, if you can avoid creating a piece of paper, do so. But once paper is created, I don’t want to spend time making it electronic if there’s no value in doing so.
Yeah, this is a good plan for some things. We tend to remember WHEN we received or accessed something, and if you can pin it to a year, that’s close enough.
I do like having monthly folders though, to hold my receipts and bills and statements; there are some old file folders I’ve kept for years, like the various things I’ve printed off related to Anton Chekhov, that I like keeping together in one place. I like the unity of certain topics whose contents have built up over time. All my health insurance stuff — I like that in a separate place.
And for current personal projects, I’d say that creating short-term folders is helpful so those items are easily retrieved. But after the project is over, maybe just keep the critical stuff in your annual bucket file and toss the rest.
But for general-interest stuff I’ve printed out and don’t know how else to file — the one bucket that will hold them all could be the trick. I’ve kept in the past an “info-index,” where I numbered printouts of things and then kept a Word file where I described the numbered documents; this let me quickly find some things that had disappeared off the web or that only existed as printouts (like some class handouts). But I’ve resisted creating a new one, and this may be why — because I know I’ll likely never retrieve that stuff again.
When it comes to filing, you have to decide are you going to put in the time on the front end to code it for fast retrieval later or put in the time on the back end to retrieve it when you discover you need it. And since there are studies that show you only access about 2% of what you file, your method is perfectly valid. (For some research libraries, only 2-5% of all of their books are ever checked out, I think.)
I don’t know though; there’s my information packrat side that really likes hoarding things in categories. But maybe it’s time to just take this stuff less seriously.
This nails it, Mike:
“When it comes to filing, you have to decide are you going to put in the time on the front end to code it for fast retrieval later or put in the time on the back end to retrieve it when you discover you need it.”
That’s exactly how I feel. Ideally, the need for organization should precede the act of organization. If the need doesn’t exist, you’re just wasting time.
Wow! I can’t believe I’ve been needlessly using an elaborate filing system for my mail for over 10 years now. Since I rarely (or ever!) refer to this material after filing, a yearly box will save me loads of time. Thanks for kicking me into realizing this…
I clip and save all my unimportant web info to Evernote. Thinking that I may want to look at again. It is my virtual junk drawer. I agree; I rarely look back for anything. I scan (scansnap) the rest and OCR so I can easily find info later, but again, rarely do. I shred all the personal paperwork, but for original contracts etc. I love being paperless. For personal naming with first work that comes to mind seems very reasonable. Especially if you OCR and can search later. Of course the Mac is a PDF paperless office dream set up with a Scansnap and Spotlight.
After reading this, I won’t need that new filing cabinet!
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