Challenge Title: How to mange the paper information overload at work

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For 100,000 years, the three fundamental stages of the communication process have been in sync: Production, Distribution and the Processing

This was served through the smoke signal, the drum, the town crier, the carrier pigeon, the newspaper, the photograph, the telegraph, the telephone, radio and film.

In the last 50 years, with the advent of computers, microwave transmissions, television, and satellites, that graceful sync is out of kilter.

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We are now able to hyper-produce and hyper-distribute information, but we continue to process it at the same pace

1.

You can find information quickly

You can discern which information is relevant which is not

You can decide what to keep and what to toss

1.

Know that people with larger trash receptacles make more money, have a large, convenient recycling bin available when you are bring the mail into your home office

2.

Do an initial purge: open the mail over the recycling bin

3.

Do an annual purge: business (at year end) and personal (during tax season)

1.

Make decisions about today’s mail, today.

2.

Capture the action associated with the paper on your Master List, the paper itself can stay in a pile of a series of folders or a specialty folder (see resource pages FILING)

3.

Refer the action to your calendar as an appointment / obligation

4.

Have Active Projects in a desk top rack, series of magazine racks a series, or in a specific drawer for only those files

1.

Have a solid filing cabinet (HON is a good cabinet maker)

2.

Most businesses can be managed in 5-7 information buckets. Below is a sample that may be appropriate for your records

   • Administration
         • Benefits
         • Corporate policies and procedures
         • Meeting
         • Memberships
         • Policies
         • Travel Pending

   • Clients

   • Financial
         • Benefits
         • Expenses
         • Budgets

   • Marketing
         • Contests
         • Compliance
         • Labeling

   • Products
         • By name
         • By competition

   • Personnel
         • Candidates
         • Colleagues
         • Manager
         • Speakers
         • Vendors

   • Professional

3.

Name files consistently: Noun followed by an adjective

   • Budget, 2006 not 2006 Budget
   • Report, Annual not Annual Report

4.

Utilize "Straight Line Filing" to reduce eye strain and aide in retrievability Have each file tab on the same plane in each set of

5.

Color code files by bucket of information. This adds meaning and recognition, and aide in retrievability

6.

Use a label maker, creates files quickly

7.

Use specialty labels to add distinction

8.

Create a procedure for filing regularly. Have TO FILE bin or magnetic folder on the side of your file cabinet) File to that initially then regularly file those papers into you file cabinet.

1.

Take any stack of paper nearby

2.

Glance and decide action: File, Act or Trash

   a. If trash, do it
   b. If action, separate to be handled later (see below)
   c. If file, decide which is the largest “information bucket” this could go in

3.

Use floor space to sort into buckets

4.

Use post-its on the wall to label major buckets

   a. New bucket: new pile, new post it

5.

Continue until each stack is sorted

6.

Make files based on those buckets