Desk Clutter
I don’t know about you, but if I don’t put ‘Filing’ on my To Do List, my paperwork runs amok. When you leave town for a week and don’t ask the post office to hold your mail, you get a lot to sort through. I finally got through the stack on Tuesday night last week when I updated my NetWorthHQ graph, but did not end up actually filing it away.
Lots of people go with electronic statements, but I’ve never felt 100% comfortable with that. I like keeping a paper record of things. I work in IT and I’ve seen one too many untimely computer demises. I don’t need the extra storage of a back up drive, but I think one would be essential for the switch to electronic statements.
I guess I’d like to leave a paper trail since it’ll be readable no matter how many times the electronic formats change over the years, or I close an account, etc. I like being able pull everything at once if I am in a rush to get a financial statement ready, etc. It made it a lot easier when I was applying for mortgages. Though I suspect this is because I don’t own a printer. Think printers encourage a bad habit of wasting paper. I print data models all the time at work, cut and paste them in pretty ways for visual reference. It’s bad.
I know part of why I like keeping paper records is the supreme pleasure of filing. Most people view it as a chore. But I love office supplies. I like my label maker, the felt tip pens, the manila file jackets, etc. I used to yell at my old boss to just do it for 15 minutes a day because he was always behind. Do it for 15 minutes and stop. If there was stuff leftover, fine, just schedule another 15 minutes the next day to do it. That’s probably the best housecleaning tip I ever learned. Pretty soon, you’ll find yourself filing or cleaning for 30 minutes or more. Getting started is often the hardest part.
One last thing tip: I consult as a professional organizer. I love organizing. Often times, on a blank file jacket, I’ll write done a summary of the folder’s contents if there is something exceptional stuck in there. I find that filing quirks are hard. One day the reference will make sense, a month later it won’t, so this is the best way of finding things sometimes.
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