Turn your file cabinets into ‘finding systems’
Turn your file cabinets into finding systems’
Clean up clutter, find what you need in seconds
When was the last time you hunted for a file, an e-mail address, or an article? If you spent more than five seconds, it was too much, says consultant Barbara Hemphill, president of Hemphill Productivity Institute (HPI) in Raleigh, NC. Yet many people are drowning in good information that they’ve saved because they thought they would it use someday.
"Not being able to re-use existing information costs the U.S. economy an estimated 10s of billions of dollars each year," she says, "but repackaging existing information only saves time and money if you can find it."
Before you begin organizing existing information, you need to have fresh in mind the three things you can do with any piece of paper. Hemphill has coined them the FAT system:
• File it for reference.
"Don’t read it unless you’re going to act on it right away," she warns, "because you’ll forget it before you need the information. A better alternative is just-in-time reading’ in your planning period for a meeting or presentation, for example." A word to the wise: When you tear an article from a journal or download it from a Web site, be certain to include the citation or source so you’ll have it when a colleague asks.
• Act on it.
Action items include the files and reference materials for a current project. They belong on your desk or within arm’s reach.
• Toss it.
That’s what you’ll do with four out of five pieces of paper that cross your desk. "The more organized you become, the more you’ll throw away," Hemphill explains. But don’t let this thought scare you. As we keep more, we use less because it’s harder to access.
The average worker in any office spends about 150 hours a year rummaging for past information, Hemphill says. And it all starts on your desktop. Each little pile of clutter represents postponed decision making. Be assured that today’s mail will bring another pile. So remind yourself of the FAT system and start organizing your desk. Leave the old stuff alone, Hemphill advises. "You’ll never use 80% of what you’ve kept," she says. Set up three boxes on your desk, and put your wastebasket within easy reach. That’s the backbone of your new paper management system.
1. The file box holds reference materials that you need to keep, but not for immediate use. Understand that the contents of this box will be managed differently than any filing you have done, or have not done, in the past.
2. The inbox is where colleagues can place something with absolute confidence that you will act on it — sign it, read it, review it — in a timely fashion. "If you stay current with the inbox, people will no longer have to tape things to your computer screen or telephone to get your attention," Hemphill notes.
3. The outbox is where you put items to pick up as you walk out of your office, such as the files for today’s meetings or an article for a teammate whose office you pass on the way out of the building.
Each piece of information from your file box can be filed in at least five different ways, Hemphill explains. Material on blood pressure, for example, might go under blood pressure, hypertension, vital signs, heart disease, diabetes, or pregnancy. Hemphill’s solution, driven by software called Taming the Paper Tiger, works on the simple premise of putting your papers into files labeled with random numbers.
The upfront work is to assign a set of key words to each number. Come up with key words by asking yourself, for example, "If I need information on blood pressure again, what word or words will I think of?" To start the numerical file system, assign numbers and key words to the papers in your file box. Then go to your most frequently used file cabinet. When you finish, you have your core files.
Taming the Paper Tiger enables you to quickly change, delete, or add key words. The program nips the tendency to postpone filing when you’re too busy to print a label: On command, it prints extra labels to prepare files for new information. Hemphill advises that you periodically print out the list of numerical files and corresponding key words and post them on each file drawer. The program works for personal files as well as shared documents for a department or team.
With such a system, multiple users can find or add information so that others can access it. Before you place a document in your file box, you can even write the number of the folder where it will go in the file cabinet. When the file box gets full, you or an assistant can efficiently catch up on filing.
Need More Information?
For more on managing your knowledge resources, contact:
Barbara Hemphill, Hemphill Productivity Institute, 1464 Garner Station Blvd., Suite 330, Raleigh, NC 27603. Telephone: (800) 427-0237 or (919) 773-0722. Web site: www.productivityconsultants.com. The institute offers the ProductivityQuickStart training seminar, from four hours to two days, in the client’s office. Fees range from $5,000 to $10,000.
For more on turning a filing system into a finding system, check out:
Taming the Paper Tiger, a software program to aid accessing knowledge resources in print form. Costs are $79.95 for a single user, $129.95 per user for networks. Quantity discounts available. Contact Hemphill Productivity Institute.
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