Office Organization Tips

If you want to organise your paperwork, there are some golden rules:

1. Handle each piece of paper only once
2. When you’ve finished with it, put it away in its proper place.
3. When it’s finished with, bin it or archive it.

Of course in real life, it’s often difficult to achieve these goals. But just by TRYING to stick to the rules, you will make your life much easier.

The first rule – handle each piece of paper only once. When you’re busy, it’s tempting to put a bill or whatever aside and say you’ll “get to it later”. The reality is, you’ve already got it in your hand, so you’re already interrupted. Now it’s going to be more time-efficient to do something with it, than put it down again.

You’re going to say, “but I have to go to the bank / get on the internet / go to the Post Office to pay this bill, and I can’t do that right now.” OK, that’s fine – but the idea is to go as far towards your goal as you can, even if it’s only a tiny step.

Let’s say you have to go to the Post Office to pay this bill. In that case, put the bill in your purse, so when you next go out shopping, you can’t forget it. Or if you have to get on the internet, put the bill by the computer. You may have a filing tray for “things to do”, or maybe you’ll just put the bill on top of the keyboard, so you can’t miss it next time you log on.

If someone else has to do something with the document, it’s definitely worth taking the few minutes to call or email that person immediately, no matter how busy you are. That means that while you are busy, the other person is already working on the problem – progress is being made.

Once you are finished with a document, don’t leave it lying around: get into the habit of putting it away immediately, and in its proper place.

If you don’t have a “proper place”, then organize something now! It may be as simple as a concertina file (a big cardboard file with several slots, either one for each letter of the alphabet, or with labels that you can decide yourself). Even if all you can manage is a cardboard box labelled “bills”, another labelled “tax” etc, make sure you have something.

Of course, sometimes the “proper place” is the wastepaper bin. You don’t need to keep everything!

Unless you are running a business from home and need to claim tax, you don’t need to keep household bills forever. Electricity, gas, and phone bills can be thrown away as soon as you receive the next month’s bill, and you can see that they’ve received your payment. The only reason to keep utility bills is if you want to monitor your usage, and many suppliers can now give you this information online or on request anyway.

If you think you may want to apply for a loan in the near future, then keep six months’ bank statements. Otherwise, once you have checked a statement and know it is correct, there’s no value in keeping it, unless you need it for the taxman. The same may apply to pay slips – check your local tax regulations.

Buy a supply of large envelopes. They take up much less space than cardboard folders or ring binders, so they are the most space-efficient way to store documents that you have to keep, but rarely need to look at. They’re cheap, too! You can store your envelopes in an old suitcase or in a decorative storage box from your stationer.

When you have finished with a project of any kind, put everything in an envelope. Label the envelope with the subject and the date in nice big writing, in thick pen. An example might be applying for a mortgage – once you’ve done all the paperwork, you’ll likely never look at the documents again, you’ll just pay the instalments. So put all the solicitors’ letters and bank documents in an envelope and put it away in a safe place.

The same goes for tax. You do have to keep information on your annual tax for several years (check your local requirements), but you’ll probably never look at them again unless you’re audited. Put each year’s tax in a separate envelope, label it and put them away.

If you follow this routine, you won’t need a large amount of space to store your active documents, which will make it easier to keep tidy and to file new things.

Make it a habit to review your files at the end of each financial year. Clean out all the documents that you won’t need in the new year – either envelope or bin them. Documents will be easier to file and to find, and your “active” filing won’t take up much space. Sorted!

Photo courtesy of Zevotron on Flickr