Select a Results Recipe of your choice and see if the suggested tips works for you or not.
These days, in order to really stay organized, you need a personal assistant to follow you around with a blackberry and an accordion file folder ready to process & file information at will. Otherwise you will be hard-pressed to keep up! Well you can do what most of the busy bodies do- create organized stacks of papers on your office desk, chair, floor, dining room table and when you run out of room- the foot of your bed. You learn great skills practicing this ‘stacking’ method: you can eyeball a leaning stack and know exactly how many more sheets of paper you can add before it spills over into the next stack. OR- you can try a simple 7 Step organizational technique that will help you minimize your tendency to stack and manage your financial records and paperwork so that they are always readily available for quick reference and easy retrieval.
- LOCATION: Designate a File Cabinet for Your Financial Records and Establish a Filing System that Works for You.
- FILING SYSTEM: Decide How You Want your System to be Organized: By Month, Alphabetical By Company Name, Alphabetical By Category, etc...
- INDIVIDUAL FILES: Create Individual Files in Accordance with the Filing System You Chose to Use.
- PENDING FILE: Keep a Pending File in the Very Front of Your Files for Items That Need Attention or Reference Frequently.
- REFERENCE FILE: Keep a Reference Folder Next to or On Top of Your File Cabinet that You will Refer to & Clean Out at the Beginning of Each Month.
- ROUND FILE: Keep a Paper Shredder/Garbage Can Next to Your File Cabinet for Items that are No Longer Required.
- DISPOSITION: Follow this method of properly dispositioning your paperwork:
- Junk Mail: Immediately Recycle in Your ROUND FILE. If You Feel You Really Need Some of the Information in Junk Mail, Well, You Don't. You Can Get It When You Need It on the Internet.
- Always File Bills & Financial Paperwork Immediately, in Your INDIVIDUAL FILES. It Takes About 2 Minutes, and Then You're Done.
- If You Have Issues with a Bill, put it in Your PENDING FILE.
- Your REFERENCE FILE Should be used for Idea Joggers. If You are Not Joggin' Your Ideas at Least Once a Month, You Don't Need the Information. If You Still Feel You Need it, then Move the Paperwork into Your PENDING FILE and Make it a Priority.
- ROUND FILE Everything Else. If You Feel Uncomfortable Round Filing Anything, Then Add Them to Your PENDING FILE. When this File Starts to get Bulky, Believe Me, You Will Start to Realize How Powerful the Internet is and How Much You Don't Need All That Paperwork.
Good Luck!
Moxie Design Studios™