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Balancing Life's Demands

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Practical Paper Management

Vicki Norris | Outcomes, May/Jun 2006

The executive who wants to get his environment and professional life under control will invest in several customized paper management systems. The savvy business person values her time, and counts the cost of wasted time searching for missing documents.

Studies have shown that the average executive wastes an hour a day looking for important papers, totaling more than six weeks annually. That represents a loss to that organization equal to approximately 12 percent of that executive's salary.  

Indirect detrimental costs (which ultimately cost money or possibly a job) include the following:

• Damaged credibility
• Personal stress
• Interpersonal tension
• Diminished competence
• Lack of confidence
• Stymied productivity 

All our resources are gifts to be managed with purpose. This includes our time, our environment, our possessions, and even the documents that record and reflect our life activities. Those individuals who have complete control over their environment, their time and their paper are rare. The flow, capture and retrieval of paper causes more angst and confusion for people than any other area of organizing need.

In fact, all the clients with whom I work need help managing their paper, in varying degrees. Some just need a system to capture their incoming paper. Some lack a filing system, so permanent papers have no destination. We pile because we don't file.  

Consider the time you'll spend setting up effective paper management systems as an investment in your sanity. The costs of finding a misfiled document or recreating a lost document are significantly greater than if the document was promptly and correctly filed. 

In the corporate world, I've observed that there are at least four paper management systems my clients seem to need. They include a paper processing system, a current or pending projects system, a refer or delegate system, and a filing system. I can't emphasize enough the importance of customizing each system to the roles, thinking patterns, habits and work style of each client.

I extensively interview clients in their unique environments to discover their individual needs. Systems that are imposed tend to hinder a person's productivity, and may eventually be abandoned. Systems that are intuitive to the individual are easy for the client to use and maintain.

Implement a Paper Processing system

This system will give you a place to pre-sort your mail and incoming paper. It's generally best if it's categorized by actionable items (TO DO, TO READ, TO FILE, TO DECIDE, TO CALL, etc.). However, some people are more topically-oriented, and for them, I set up a topical paper processing system built around their specific roles (FINANCIAL, ADMINISTRATIVE, MARKETING, etc.)