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The Paper Tiger Blog contains great ideas on better ways to stay organized, clear your desk, reduce stress and spend less time managing information.

Managing (and Paring Down) Filing Cabinets

This article by Meggin McIntosh, “The Ph.D. of Productivity”™ and a Paper Tiger Expert, will help you think through steps to purge your filing cabinets and get your filing system under control! Meggin also recommends Paper Tiger. Click here to check out Meggin’s webinar that will help you better understand Paper Tiger Filing System Software for document management to be able to use the software more effectively and see how you can get organized in every area of your life — not just paper filing! Meggin does an awesome job in showing you pictures of all of the different things she has organized and relating those items back to what she has indexed in Paper Tiger.

Meggin’s Tips for Managing & Purging Your Filing Cabinets

Are your filing cabinets overly full?  Below are some tips that Meggin sent to a consulting client who had incredibly (overly) full filing cabinets. Don’t forget to update your Paper Tiger database to update the items indexed to match what is in your filing cabinets, and you might think about using the File Cleanout Report to help you. (see example of File Cleanout Report below)

1.  Choose one drawer to start with and just start with the very first file in that drawer. Do not start working on another drawer until you have gone through all of the first place you started.

2.  Set aside a certain amount of time everyday, for example, 30 minutes of uninterrupted time, and go through as many files as you can in that time.

3.  Just take the one file out of the drawer, put it on your desk, and do the following:

  • Get rid of anything that you don’t need to keep (either toss or shred).
  • Put in archival storage anything that needs to be kept, but not kept in your office.
  • Leave the items that belong in the folder there and put it back in the filing cabinet. Note: before placing the folder back in the filing cabinet, this would be the time to edit the item in your Paper Tiger database to make sure that the items in your hanging file folder matches the Item Name and Keywords. For example,
    • If you’ve tossed or shredded everything in that folder, you would want to ‘Toss’ the item in your Paper Tiger database.
    • Or if you move the documents from that folder to an archive location, now would be the time to ‘Transfer’ the Item in Paper Tiger to the new ‘Location’ in the database.

4.  If you come to any files that are falling apart, have one of your assistants put things into a new file. It’s frustrating to pull files out that are just falling apart or frayed.

5.  Just keep working through one file at a time…and my guess is that you will toss, shred, or archive half of what is currently in your office.

Remember….everyday, go through folders until you are down to the bare bones of what you need to keep in your filing cabinets.

And for more strategies and tips like these, you will want the  Top Ten Productivity Tips – the Collection! which is available for immediate download!

Example File Cleanout Report from Filing Cabinet Indexed in Paper Tiger

Published with Permission (c) 2013 Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D. | The Ph.D. of Productivity(tm) | http://www.meggin.com

About Meggin McIntosh

Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D., “The Ph.D. of Productivity”(tm). Through her company, Emphasis on Excellence, Inc., Meggin McIntosh supports smart people who want to be more productive so that they can consistently keep their emphasis on excellence.

Phone: 775.853.5510

And to keep moving forward on your goals for more peaceful productivity, join others (worldwide) who receive Meggin’s weekly emails, and see what is available for download at no cost at any of MEGGIN’S WEBSITES:

http://meggin.com (Primary site)

http://GetaPlanGuides.com

http://KeepingChaosatBay.com

http://TopTenProductivityTips.com

http://JustWhelmed.com

http://OwningWordsforLiteracy.com

http://PumpernickelPublishing.com

http://StayingPositiveinaFreakedOutWorld.com

http://LifeofEs.com


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2 Responses to “Managing (and Paring Down) Filing Cabinets”

  1. Cheryl Togashi says:

    Thank you so very much for this reminder! I am planning a out of state move soon, and TOTALLY forgot about this AMAZING feature of my Paper Tiger program!

    This report, printed today, will help me immensely in clearing out and keeping only what is important, making my “filing” much less cumbersome!

    I’m on this in about 15 minutes!

  2. Janet Baker says:

    Cheryl,
    You are welcome! It is exciting to us to see that Paper Tiger is such a great help to you! Best wishes with your move, which should run much smoother as organized as you will be. Take care, Janet with the Paper Tiger team

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