Get Everything Done

Help! I think it's time to admit I'm chronically disorganised regarding paperwork. I have read all of Mark's books and am back using AF for tasks. I am forever hopeful that I can change into a super-organised person but I cannot seem to get the wretched paperwork side under control. I have done Marks 'halving' to get things separated but then seem to run out of steam, or get a portion of it put into files, or I can't decide what to call things, or why I'm keeping them, then the rest just eventually morphs back into one big pile. I don't like hanging files, and I'm an artist - so want it all to look nice (someone shoot me for gawds sake).
I'm both employed and self-employed with all the paper paraphernalia that comes with that. Great big files just seem to collapse under the weight, yet I seem to have a hundred categories - any suggestions for where to even start?
Oh - but it's not just paperwork is it? there's all the computer based stuff as well. And passwords & user ids - all mine are written on scrappy bits of paper which get lost in The Scary Big Pile. Is it ever really possible to sort all this out? Do you think you are just born with the sorting gene?
It seems never ending.
You all seem sooooo super efficient, in posting here - I feel a bit like I'm eating a big steak in front of a load of vegans :(

Any suggestions gratefully appreciated
Thank you

Buy Julie Morgenstern books. She has practical advice for storage and organizing. See amazon.com reviews are quite glowing. Her first big idea is to organiZe like a kindergarten teacher: things go together that are used together.

So file by activity.

For user ids and passwords: I use keepass portable - really helpful for my ~50 accounts (some of them with password rotation with different frequencies)

For paper: good question ... I'm still working on it (but getting better)

In you situation I would use the expandable pocket files and use categories. For instance each year I make an axpandable file called 20XX paid bills and taxes. I put all of my paid bills and anything related to taxes into it. At the end of the year it only takes a short time to organize my taxes because I make sure it is all in this one place. I do not need to organize beyond making sure everything I will need is in one place which saves me lots of time.

Projects like books I am writing etc all go into one expandable file as well with all of the research notes etc.

The other tips, which you may not like is just a simple a-z filing system with folders in a cabinet

Gerry

http://www.simple-time-management.com

I use an approach I copied from freedom filer. I use cardboard magazine files because they are cheap and you don't need to punch the paper you are filing. The brilliant bit (and it really is brilliant) is the catagories of file:

PERMANENT - for stuff you want to keep for ever. I have one for tax, one for house deeds and mortgage and one for other stuff like premium bond certificates.

REMOVE AND REPLACE - for things that update every so often like a health insurance card. The idea is that when something goes in, something else comes out.

TIME DELAYED TO BIN - for things I might need....

Explaining this last one, if an electricity bill arrives today I put it in a file marked 2010 first half. This file has 4 friends 2008 H1 and 2, and 2009 H1 and 2. When I get to July 2010 I take the contents of 2008 H1 and throw them out then relabel that file 2010 H2. I used to waste hours with GTD's A-Z filing so I'd put the electricity bill into a file and then forget if it was B for bill, or E for Electricity or L for London Electricity - it took ages to file and I could never find anything.

If I need to maintain segmentation within a magazine folder I use a C4 envelope with the top cut off and I write on the side what's in it - sort of like noguchi but I use it to group similar things like say the contract for my health care with the membership card. The envelopes get put back always on the left as Mark recommends.

I am not slavish to my system so if a subject needs it's own file it gets one,

The key here is make it so easy to file that you do it straight away rather than using a "file pile".

I'm battling the same demons Emma! I cannot deal with it all at the same time so I'm tackling this bit by bit.

First thing I have done is to buy a very attractive bright pink lever arch file for household stuff. Plan is to keep all the bills in here and stuff I need to keep to hand.

Secondly I keep a lever arch file for each of my two businesses and into these files go invoices, bank statements, receipts and all other paper work I need for my accounts.

Thirdly I keep a hanging file for each of our two cars which contains all the relevant paperwork, receipts, insurance, MOT ect. These I keep in an a-z filing cabinet.

Fourthly I keep a file called 'documents' which contains birth certificates, passports, savings books, driving licences etc.

Most other stuff goes into the a-z filing system. I keep a file for each bank account for example, Xmas card list, and whatever else.

I've started a list book which contains a book of lists (surprise, surprise!) and one item in here is a list of passwords. Any passwords which are software based I keep in an email folder called passwords.

Hope this helps - some of the things the others mentioned don't work for me, so it is a matter of finding what resonates with you. Let us know how you get on and what works for you.

For stuff you need to keep, but not necessarily find/use very often... there's always one box filing - http://www.simpleproductivityblog.com/filing-heresy-one-box-filing/

I have 1 chronological folder for bills, one for bank stuff. 1 folder for tax stuff. Everything else I want to have organized someway, and I semi-sort-of have done it. Actually it just isn't top priority to get there. 99% of this disorganized stuff I don't need to look at. So this one box filing system makes sense. Only I would use hanging folders just so it's easy to search the stuff if the need ever comes. (Pull a folder, flip through pages, put away, get the next folder.)

If I do ever get really organized, I'm going by the activity-oriented system. I have 13 major activities in my life, so each gets a spot, and stuff relevant to that activity goes there. But if it's related to an activity but isn't actually helpful, I'm gonna toss it.

Man of Kent mentioned Freedom Filer (http://www.freedomfiler.com), which I think is a great system. It may (or may not) be more complicated than you want. You might consider reading Judith Kolberg's excellent book, Conquering Chronic Disorganization. One of the suggestions in it is to use creative file names that make sense to you. You might have a file, for example, called "Things that might come back to bite me in the butt" if that's a file name that works for you.

If there's budget for it, hiring a professional organizer to help you create a filing system that makes sense for you would be a great idea. You can find an organizer who is trained in working with chronically disorganized clients at the website of the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization (http://www.nsgcd.org). They're primarily in the U.S. and Canada. Another directory for organizers in the US is the National Association of Professional Organizers (http://www.napo.net). There are similar organizations in Canada and Australia/New Zealand.

Full disclosure: I'm a professional organizer certified in working with chronically disorganized clients.

Emma, you are so so right and I love you for asking. I sit beside you, eating a large steak too.

I’ve tried lever arch, and filing cabinets, and envelopes, and expandable files, and carrier bags; and everything ends up in piles. I’ve tried many flavours of self-organisation guru. And everything still ends up in piles.

The problem seems to be categorising things. As you say, is it a B-for-bill, or an E-for electricity? (That, plus an irrational love of archiving things ever-so-neatly. I’m not a stamp collector but I understand the attraction.)

I must say I had a mental tingle at Alan’s notion that ‘things that go together that are used together’; and also at Man of Kent’s classification of permanent/remove and replace/time delayed to bin.

There might be something in these two. Perhaps mixed in with Noguchi there’s an answer there…?

Donmold: if you're already mixing approaches, have a look at http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/light/organization.php - this article gave me the insight that whatever nice filing system I have, it ends up being a black hole where stuff gets put and never retrieved again, because I forget everything I don't see.

So I'm trying to find a neat solution where I can see everything ... sounds like a contradiction, but I love my project boxes: http://www.ikea.com/ch/de/catalog/products/00032379

Bin is a verb? Maybe it's a British thing again :-) I suppose you mean trash it all. Throw the entire pile in the recycle box, but wait till next week before you send it to the curb/thru the shredder.

Donmold, I think your post contains an element of your problem. Trying to organize by following a whole lot of ideas at once is a recipe for confusion. [although i am tempted to combine activity and permanance ideas. ] You'll get stuck never knowing where to file something. Think it through, make sure you have a clear plan, and when it's clear to you go with it. Follow Mark's 3 points to make it happen.

<<Bin is a verb? Maybe it's a British thing again :-) I suppose you mean trash it all. >>

Trash is a verb? ;-)

Thank you all so, so much! So many helpful points and resources. I've had such a productive day, sorting and trashing (binning :-) and archiving. My main realisation was that I was making it all waaaay too complicated! I don't need lots of different categories - 'like with like' is fine. Am still working on it but have already reduced it to a Not So Scary Pile - less than a third of the size it was yesterday - I feel I can breathe again and it's not so overwhelming. Lots of tasks added to my AF list so I know they won't get lost. I was doing the classic 'keep the papers out so I don't forget'. The other thing was that my office was overflowing with (empty) office organisation supplies! Don't need them - have already boxed them up out of the way. I will continue to re-read your comments as I continue developing a system that works for me.

Thanks again everyone.
They should teach this stuff at school!

In elementary school at the beginning of the year, the teacher gives everyone a notebook and says "write math and your name on the front cover". And so on. And life was organized then wasn't it? I think they forgot to teach how life has its subjects even if it isn't part of a class. Maybe they assumed that was what you learned at home, but it seems to me I never had general instruction on how to keep things organized, just the specific "this goes there", and if my adult life had something not found in my childhood, it didn't have a place.

Emma,

Have you read David Allen's _Getting Things Done_ yet? I was like you, and implementing GTD got me organized, especially with paperwork, both at home and at work. If you really want to organize *everything*, you'll need a couple of uninterrupted days. But the feeling of getting through all that "backlog" is amazing. After the initial collection and processing phase, a few of the other key GTD concepts that will keep you organized are: (1) using a single In tray for all papers; (2) keeping a simple A-Z reference file system with labeled manila folders (not hanging); and (3) constructing and using a 43-folders "tickler" file which serves as a perpetual reminder system. I also highly recommend Merlin Mann's Inbox Zero video, which extends a GTD concept, that of of processing your physical In tray to zero, to the email world.

All of these GTD tools are completely compatible with Mark's DIT / AF / DWM systems, in my opinion.

Good luck!