17 Minute File Diet
In: Paper Management
17 May 2010
A couple weeks ago in my May Tip of the Month I recommended transferring your old taxes, old statements, and old tax supporting material from your file cabinet to a more remote location. I said that it should only take 15-20 minutes if you had a user-friendly file system set up.
This weekend, I followed my own advise and I’m happy to report that I clocked in at just under 17 minutes. You may indeed say well, so what? So this. I trimmed two bloated file jackets of file fat (pictured at right) from my file cabinet and gained 20% file space for my new 2010 files. When your file cabinet has a manageable number of files in it, they are much easier to find and finding is the whole point of filing.
Crash diets can be dangerous, but this one isn’t. The reason is that I have a user-friendly filing system in place, which helps me answer WHY I am keeping a file and for HOW LONG. We all know there is a limit to how much a file cabinet can hold, but this system actually does something about it.
Cleaning out your file cabinet falls under the Someday Syndrome when it is an open ended proposition, but when you know it is something you can do in 15-20 minutes, the odds of getting it done increase exponentially.
- Tags: file cabinet, filing system
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Professional Organizer Matt Baier and his team declutter and organize homes and offices in Stamford, New Canaan, Greenwich, Westport, Darien, Norwalk, Fairfield, Westchester County, and New York City.
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