Tuesday, March 12, 2013 was National Organize Your Home Office Day, but here at Paper Tiger we like to designate the whole month of March for organizing your home office (besides, who do you know that can organize an entire office in one day?) With people working from home and diving into self-employment, home offices are quite common. It has been said that at least one in four households have a home office. With clutter on the kitchen counter, dining room table and other areas of the house, this day in particular is designated to getting the office organized.
We know this isn’t a task that can be tackled in one day, but with Paper Tiger Filing System Software for Document Management, we have a few tips that can help you make huge strides.
Optional: Since you are cleaning out your office, you might as well make sure that you are not storing documents that you no longer need or use. Your organizing system needs to be organized as well. (Surely you remember how you can’t be clean on the outside unless you’re clean on the inside). You can print the Paper Tiger File Clean-Out Guide to help you clean out papers from existing files. Also use the Transfer Report to help you physically move documents from one location to another so that your physical hanging file folders matches what you have in Paper Tiger.
These are just steps to help you get started. Of course, it would be quite difficult to clean out an entire home office in one day. Completing one of these steps a day (in order of course) can ensure a clean and tidy office in a week. Remember to relax and take your time when cleaning your office. Don’t get overwhelmed in organizing your home office. You’ll be so proud, you will want to go from room to room. Happy Organizing!
Does your home need de-cluttering? The old maxim “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”, has been around for a very long time and with good reason. Now you may say that cleanliness and being orderly are different matters but I tend to disagree. A home or office cannot be clean if it is disorderly as it is impossible to keep the area clean when it is cluttered.
For those of you whose living areas have deteriorated to this extent, there is hope and like any great journey it starts with the first step. What may seem daunting is always best tackled when broken down into smaller tasks. The first step starts with reducing all the baubles you’ve collected over the years.
When it comes to de-cluttering we strongly suggest you purge your “inner magpie”. Yes, it is you magpies out there gathering everything you see whether needed or not that have turned your homes into warehouse facilities by storing peripheral items that make negotiating the rooms of your house almost as dangerous as crossing a minefield.
Sit down and methodically go through everything you have stored over the years and see how much of it is relevant to your life and worth keeping. If you have trouble disposing of things, recruit another family member who is less sentimental when it comes to keeping minor items and divide the items into things to keep, items to trash, items to donate, and items to sell. Garage sales are a great way to raise money and de-clutter your home at the same time.
Now that your house is beginning to resemble something that approximates a home, the next step is to store like with like. For example, papers of a certain topic should be batched together and if there is insufficient or inappropriate shelving or filing, then now is the time to invest in it. Similarly, purchase your music and books digitally instead of the physical CD or book. An MP3 player and iPad or Kindle take up much less room and are easier to find. For your physical books and CDs, go through these to decide what you will keep, what you will give away or maybe sell at a yard sale or on eBay. You can index your paper files and other physical items, such as the books and CDs that you decide to keep into Paper Tiger Filing System Software to get organized so you can find what you need, when you need it.
Your outdoors areas are not immune from a thorough tidying up. Chances are that if you have remiss in your duties of keeping your indoors tidy, then this habit has flowed through to your yard. Deck boxes are a great place for keeping smaller and medium sized items stored out of sight. They come in a range of colors and sizes, and may also be designed to provide additional outdoor seating making them particularly durable. For larger items, buy a plastic shed. They are easy to assemble and resistant to the elements and great for storing gardening tools, bicycles, and other large items.
Once you can see your carpet, floorboards, and grass again, the trick is not to let your house and yard return to its previous state. When it comes to keeping things tidy, prevention is definitely better than cure.
Written by Sharon B. Robinson on behalf of Keter, who offers storage solutions from deck boxes to storage sheds. For more tips on de-cluttering or storage solutions for getting organized, follow us on Twitter @KeterTweets
Tidy Tiger Solutions, Michelle Panzlaff, a Professional Organizer and one of our Certified Paper Tiger Experts, has found a way to combine the functionality of the powerful indexing systems in Paper Tiger Filing System Software for Document Management with the concepts provided by Productivity Guru, David Allen, in his world famous GTD (Getting Things Done) Systems.
If you’re a fan of these two powerful organizing tools and systems, you’ll be fascinated by this option. This kind of organizing of tasks can also be formatted to help your staff and team to manage tasks, especially if you are already using Paper Tiger to organize your information and paperwork.
Whatever task or list management system you may be using, this video may help you find new and effective ways to organize your lists. Watch now as Michelle demonstrates how.
Have you lost the ability to be creative, tired of losing important records, and is a growing list of demands getting the better of you, or those around you? Are you ready for a change and want to break the cycle?
If you are seeking some calm in your life and work, have piles of paper that need to be organized effectively, or even if you have some big projects you want help getting launched, you came to the right place.
Professional Organizers are here to help. You are not alone in your challenge to keep clutter and overwhelm from getting in the way of your higher purpose. You can have an effective work space and home you love.
We know that the world today is changing fast, and things are flying in at high speed. It’s no wonder that many of our clients are getting a little behind. There is no one to blame, as life is dynamic.
We all know that clutter can get in the way of success and happiness, and for those that want help to organize, we can help. We bring the know-how, the tools, the resources and the passion for the work at hand.
You, your staff, even your family can work less, earn more and be more productive. Enjoy a streamlined home and office so you can get back to taking care of what really matters.
Professional Organizer in Canada, Michelle Panzlaff created this video to provide you with more information and to help you achieve your goals.
Learn more about the services provided by Michelle Panzlaff and Tidy Tiger Solutions by visiting www.tidytiger.biz today.
Plus, drop into the home page of Tidy Tiger Solutions for free printable gifts and more for your home, work or personal organizing needs.
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Tidy Tiger Solutions
Michelle Panzlaff
To Michelle, serving as a Professional Organizer is all about creating more functional and enjoyable spaces, productive workflow and effective filing systems, while helping clients feel inspired and more productive.
As a skilled professional, Michelle now possesses over 23 years of office, service and administrative experience. Michelle relies on her exceptional skill set to solve complex challenges for her residential and business clients alike.
Phone: (778) 866-6942
Email: info@tidytiger.biz
3/11/2013
9:30 PM Eastern
Paper Tiger Online software is back up and running. We thank you for your patience.
You may receive a message saying that the site is a security risk, however it is just that the SSL Security Certificate for Paper Tiger Online has expired but we are in the process of renewing that certificate. The software app site is secure and under no risk.
Sincerely,
the Paper Tiger team
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3/11/2013
Paper Tiger Online software is currently down. Our IT department is working to find the problem and bring it back up as soon as possible. We appreciate your patience as we work through this, and sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.
the Paper Tiger team
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Thanks to Roberta Lile-Lindsey of Kentucky for submitting this article on how she uses Paper Tiger Filing System Software for Document Management, and how much the software has helped her, especially since an accident left her with a brain injury. We wish Roberta continued recovery in her health and improved memory.
Read on to see how Paper Tiger has helped Roberta get organized and be able to retrieve what she needs even with long-term and short-term memory loss. This shows how important it is to get organized without delay while healthy, because you never know what tomorrow will bring in your life.
by Roberta Lile-Lindsey
I purchased Paper Tiger Professional 4.1 Desktop Version a few years ago after I got married and needed to consolidate all of my paperwork with that of my husband. My main use, of course, is for my filing cabinet, which contains active content and what I call ‘ancient’ archive content. You never know when you might need to use some of this ‘ancient’ content for present use; personal or business.
We were both very busy at the time I purchased Paper Tiger. My husband was working full-time and I was a full-time student and mother of two. We had just bought and remodeled our home. We did all of the work ourselves. So, you can imagine how busy and tired we were.
Using Paper Tiger was very easy and self-explanatory. I not only used it for my filing cabinet but I also have used it for organizing my closets that have both of our past memorabilia stored. All I have to do is open up Paper Tiger and I can find all of my important files or memorabilia.
I have always tried to be organized but what I did not know at the time of my purchase of Paper Tiger was how vital its use would become.
On August 13th, 2012, my husband and I were involved in a car accident. We were rear-ended by a teenage boy who was driving on a suspended license. That Monday was the first day of our vacation and we were only a few miles from our home when the wreck occurred.
The car sustained minor damage; however, I suffered a Mild Traumatic Brain Injury and Whip Lash. Among other injuries, I lost my long-term and short-term memory. Needless to say, with the pain and memory loss, my everyday living was and has been very difficult.
Not long after the accident, I received a call from my daughter needing some important information that normally I would be able to tell her from my memory. I could not remember the information that she needed; however, I did remember that I had Paper Tiger on my computer. I told her I would have to look up the information, IF I had filed it and I would tell her what she needed to know.
Thankfully, I was able to open Paper Tiger and look-up the information that she needed, call her back and give it to her. I was so relieved that I had organized all of my important files and at-a-glance can find everything that I need in spite of my long-term and short-term memory loss!!
I have started searching my family history after the accident in order to improve my memory and cognitive skills and once I feel better, I plan on adding those files to Paper Tiger also.
I continually use Paper Tiger to find and archive paper files, memorabilia, photos, Christmas decorations and the list could go on-and-on.
Winning an Apple iPad at this point and time could really improve my chance for a full recovery, as there are many apps available for traumatic brain injury patients, such as myself. I follow brainline.org and there are some fantastic Life-Changing iPad apps for people with brain injury.
Daily life continues to be a struggle even after six months of recovery time. I am so thankful to have Paper Tiger to make my life more organized and less stressful!
Sherry Borsheim, a Paper Tiger Expert of Simply Productive, has offered some great tips on staying organized while traveling for business so that when you’re back to your office, you won’t have a lot of ‘briefcase drama’ nor will you have a stack of papers to fumble through. You’ll be able to index them into your Paper Tiger database, and file as you’ve already noted.
Conquer Your Paper Chaos When You Travel
Has this ever happened to you? You’ve just returned from a business trip and your briefcase is bulging with receipts, meeting notes, business cards, travel documents and other essential paperwork. You’ll probably spend your first day back in the office just sorting through the chaotic mass of paper before you can even think about getting down to business!
Or, perhaps you travel all over the city attending one meeting after another. By the end of the day, your briefcase is a pile of to-dos with no particular order. Phone messages are scattered on various pieces of papers and you just know that an important message is hidden somewhere in the mess. Then there are the business cards you collected, some require follow-up, but you’re not sure where you put those important numbers. If only you had kept it in a safe place so you could remember where you put it.
At this point, all those good intentions to take action and follow-up on hot new business leads fizzle into frustration. But there’s no time to think about how you misplaced those essential items. The minute you’re back in the office you find there is a pile of emails waiting for your response, in addition to a large pile of papers on your desk begging for your attention. You dive right in to the emails and before you know it the morning is gone and it’s lunchtime. You work through lunch in order to attack the pile of paper on your desk. Then you realize you reviewed your messages, so you abandon the paper pile and listen to all your messages. It’s a never-ending circle of paper, email and voicemail, and you haven’t even cracked open your briefcase. You just spend the day reacting to emergencies and interruptions with no planned scheduled time to deal with the important issues that you had hoped to get to.
This continues day after day and you’re still dragging all those papers from your business trip in your briefcase and you’ve been adding to it during the week as you attended more meetings. Now you have no idea what’s what and it all melts together into one big mountain of paper begging for your attention. How long do you let this go on before you decide to take action? For some its days and other’s, its weeks or months. Those hot new leads you made on your business trip aren’t so hot now and the longer you leave it, the more you procrastinate on taking action. Eventually you take mountain of paper out of your briefcase and drop it on the floor by your desk and say you’ll deal with it later, because you have more important things to take care of in the office. Guilt sets in and it constantly nags at you to do something but you don’t. You know you should get your business receipts handled but you’re not sure where they all are and it ends up costing you money when you could have been reimbursed.
Here are some tips on how to put an end to the briefcase drama scenario after business travel:
1. Streamline and organize your briefcase so you know what the next action is on any piece of paper and business card while you’re out of town and when you arrive back at your office. Use plastic folders to batch similar tasks together. Remember, ease of access and functionality are very important when using any organizing product.
2. Label the file folders inside your briefcase with the next action you want to take – “Call, Data Entry, Discuss, Receipts, Meeting Notes/Agenda, Photocopy, Read, or Write”. Customize your files based on your specific action steps.
3. How to use your travel briefcase when outside your office. File meeting agendas under the file tab labeled “Meeting Notes/Agenda so when you get to the meeting it’s all together. If you collect business cards during your trip there are two things you can do with the business card: (1) enter it immediately into your Contact List, or (2) file it into your mini travel briefcase under “Data Entry”. When you return to your hotel or your office, any cards that you wanted to get into your Contact List are all grouped together. You can enter them yourself, scan them using an App or delegate the task to someone else.
4. Define the next action. No more putting it aside to deal with it later. This is what I call “deferred decisions”. Instead, ask yourself this very important question: “What is the next action I want to take on this piece of paper?
5. Schedule a specific time in your calendar to handle that next action. This is the key to getting things done. A pile or file labeled “To Do” is only an intention to do something, where as a scheduled appointment is a commitment to take action on something.
6. Use clear project folders to keep like papers together. Use these project folders to keep your agenda and meetings notes together in your mini-travel briefcase or keep them on your iPad using Evernote in a folder called “Agendas”. You may be attending several meetings and these project folders are sure to keep your papers grouped together. Do not use paper clips, they tend to attach to other pieces of paper and get caught on other paper clips.
7. 80/20 Rule – 80 percent of what we file we never refer to again. Therefore, ask yourself, “What is the worst possible case scenario if you tossed this piece of paper away?” If you can live with the results of your answer to this question, then toss the piece of paper.
8. What to file for future reference. If you decided to keep the information on a piece of paper, ask yourself: “If I want to retrieve this information again, what trigger word would you think of?” Write the trigger word on the upper right hand corner of that piece of paper and file it in your briefcase under “File”.
9. Transferring papers when you return. When you return to your office after the business trip or day of meetings, everything that you’ve gathered during your time away from the office is grouped together by the next action. Instead of a mountain of paper spilling out of your briefcase, you’ll be ahead of the paper chase game, because you’ve already defined the next action. All there is for you to do is to schedule time in your calendar to handle the actions in your mini-travel briefcase. Some of the actions like Data Entry, File, and Expense Reimburse you can delegate to your assistant if you have one. That feeling of guilt and shame won’t be there because you’ve handled what you said you would do when you returned to your office. For those papers that you need to file, you can enter the ‘trigger’ word that you’ve already written on the file into your Paper Tiger database, add additional keywords if necessary, and drop the document(s) into the corresponding item number hanging file folder.
Business Travel tips:
Implementing the business travel briefcase will dramatically decrease your stress level and increase your productivity when you return to your office. You’ll turn piles of paper into valuable resources instead of deferred decisions and guilt. Instead of reacting to emergencies, you’ll be proactive on your commitments and follow-up.
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Sherry Borsheim is the president of Simply Productive. You can visit Sherry, access her free article archive and grab lots of free stuff at http://www.simplyproductive.com. Sherry lives in Vancouver, BC Canada with her husband (her high-school sweetheart).
Contact Sherry for a JUMP-START on ORGANIZING your office, home and life. She will give you her trade secrets and steps to setting up your organizing systems, including recommending Paper Tiger filing system software for document management, to be organized and manage the paper files that you need to keep in hard copy format and other physical stuff in your life.
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The start of a new year just passed and many people vowed to get organized. Why is organization such a big hurdle for people? Below are what we believe to be the top nine reasons people ask for help. In addition, we’ve given clues as to how Paper Tiger can solve each of these problems.
1. Overwhelmed: Have you ever felt so bogged down by clutter that you felt a spout of claustrophobia coming along? Clutter can most certainly become overwhelming, leading to depression and other gloominess. Paper Tiger is the perfect tool to defeat clutter. Instead of watching the papers and documents pile up, Paper Tiger allows you to file away each document and keep track of the exact location while relieving all stress. You won’t have to worry about finding a file again, because you’ll be able to search by any of the keywords you’ve input to find where you’ve filed the document. And Paper Tiger is not just for paper! You can index anything that you can put a number onto, and be able to get organized and clear the clutter.
2. Unawareness: There are always people that wish to get organized, but get hung up because they don’t know how to do it. While some people are natural organizers, others wouldn’t know where to begin. Paper Tiger’s indexing system is so simple to use, anyone can become organized! Filing paper in its original form, you don’t have to worry about the 1 or 2 words that you’d put on the hanging file folder tab because you can add as many keywords as you can think of into Paper Tiger’s database for the documents in your hanging file folders. You can search for whatever keyword that you’re thinking for the file you need to retrieve, and Paper Tiger will let you know where it is in seconds.
3. Lack of Resources: Some people don’t know that there are professional organizers and tools such as Paper Tiger Filing System Software for Document Management to help them get organized. Some jobs require help from others, and these professionals can advise you in just the right tools you need for the way you work and what you have to get organized. Getting organized is surely no easy deed, but knowing what to do, how to do it (a process), and the right tools to use can be what you’ve needed all along. With Paper Tiger, it’s as easy as setting a location, filing documents in that physical location, indexing or naming the items with keywords, and finally searching for the document in the search box. With the stroke of a few keys, Paper Tiger tells you the exact location of your document.
4. Tackling Organization: Many of us may want to start organizing, but can’t figure out what the next step should be. Maybe trying to start with your entire office isn’t the best move, perhaps try to clean the desk first or the bookshelf. Tasks that are too big take us back to being overwhelmed. Paper Tiger can make breaking larger tasks down much easier. Once you have accomplished smaller missions, tackling larger tasks will be a walk in the park.
5. Lack of Time: Time is always the enemy because it stops for no one. We all have busy lives with working each day, cooking dinner, and taking the kids to soccer practice, but we have to make a little time to prevent the accumulation of clutter. Paper Tiger is the best tool for time management. It takes no more that ten seconds to enter the database, file the document in a location and name it! Later on, when you go to search for that document, it takes even less time to type the keywords and let Paper Tiger reveal the precise location.
6. Motivation: Do you need a coach or guidance to help you get organized? Again, there are professional organizers who have been trained in how to do things more efficiently to help others be more productive; and can help you do this by setting milestones and regular check-ups with you. Paper Tiger can also serve as the motivator. Once you use it once and find that the document you filed six months ago is exactly where you left it, Paper Tiger will become your new best friend.
7. Surrounded by Clutter: It’s an awful thing when you tidy something and someone else comes right behind you and creates a mess, isn’t it? Some people get discouraged from organizing because others around them are jumbled. The real beauty of Paper Tiger lies in the keywords. You call it “Nissan car note”, he calls it “car bill” but if all these keywords are saved in Paper Tiger, both parties can find documents with ease. Getting others around you organized will be easy because everyone can still find the documents.
8. Health Concerns: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and other disorders can definitely bring organization to a screeching halt. Getting lost in thought and starting tasks but never finishing them can be very frustrating, due to no fault of their own. Attempting to declutter one stack at a time is a great milestone towards getting organized. Paper Tiger allows those unfinished tasks to be filed away for safe keeping until they are ready to be worked on again.
9. Change: We all go through changes. Marriage, new baby, our children will pack up and leave for college or we’ll move. Whatever the case may be, these transitional periods often call for reorganization. Paper Tiger is the perfect tool to help overcome these changes and stay out of the realms of clutter. Use Paper Tiger with storage bins to keep up with items that aren’t needed for immediate use. See just a few things that Paper Tiger can help you organize on our Not Just for Paper webpage at http://thepapertiger.com/tour#4
The struggle to get organized is one that can be conquered with the help of Paper Tiger and/or professional organizers. Virtually any obstacle one encounters when trying to get organized can be solved with Paper Tiger Filing System Software for Document Management. Next time you hit a snag when trying to get organized, think about how Paper Tiger and other organizing resources can help make organization easier.
Having a hobby can be a great way to relax, unwind and perfect the skills you have for knitting, collecting action figures, cooking or whatever it may be. The only problem is, often times, all those supplies from your hobby tend to take over your house. The clutter and chaos caused by the items is enough to undo all that Zen you get from relaxing with your hobby. You’ll be glad to know, though, there is a way to reclaim your home and life and still keep your hobby.
For instance, if you like to paint, you probably have a huge variety of paint colors and different styles of brushes, just to name a few of the supplies. You have tried storing them, but then can never remember what you have. You thought you had “Bruised Plum Purple” but searched and searched to no avail. So, you went out and bought another tube. When you brought it home and put it away, sure enough, you spotted the original tube.
Or maybe your hobby includes collectible trinkets. You sell them online and also keep the ones you really like. That means you have them cluttering the tables and every flat surface in your home just so you can keep track of your inventory. If one sells and you cannot find it, you are going to have problems. You may also get bad reviews from customers if you have to cancel orders because you cannot find the merchandise. All that trouble because you misplaced an item. Paper Tiger Indexng System Software will allow you to index the items and is fully capable of maintaining and controlling your inventory.
With Paper Tiger’s indexing system, you can store away all those supplies and know where everything is by looking at your computer. If you have eight bins just of paint, you simply catalog which tubes are in each bin, number the bins, and then sort them away for storage. When you need to look for “Rose Garland” next time, you simply type in the keywords and find the bin number. Locate the bin and you have your paint color. It’s that simple. And when you run out or if you move the paint, you simply update your database to reflect this. That way, there’s no confusion later.
The same thing goes for your inventory of collectibles. You can display what you want and pack the rest. Number the boxes and store them where you need. That way, even if you have boxes in a rented storage unit off your property, you will be able to find an item. You no longer have to live with your collectible items taking over your home and cluttering your life.
Paper Tiger is the best way to keep your hobby supplies organized. Get back to relaxing with your crafts or collecting and keep things neat. Paper Tiger Indexing System Software will help you get control of your hobby before your hobby takes over your home.
This article from the blog of Denise Landers, founder and CEO of Key Organization Systems Inc. and a Paper Tiger Expert, is helpful as it relays the benefits of getting organized. It’s not a minute too soon, as many people wish to get organized for the new year. Denise also recommends Paper Tiger Filing System Software and Document Management for more proficient organizing to control stress.
“Will Work for Food!” You have probably seen signs like this as you drive to and from your office. Reality is that everyone is working for food unless they are independently wealthy. In the hierarchy of needs, food and shelter are among the first elements you require. A benefit of working is that you are able to secure these comforts. You can then reach higher and attain other benefits.
The start of the new year is a good time to consider the benefits of getting organized:
Take this time to reflect on how becoming more organized will benefit you. Being organized means being ready. Being ready means:
If you’re running as hard as you can right now, how will you add in the extra work that a new situation or opportunity would create: promotion, relocation, new baby, remarriage and merging of households, downsizing? Even though these things may be positive changes in your life, they still rank high on the stress index.
Stress can lower your immune system and be responsible for many of the physical ailments you deal with, from common colds to heart conditions. With daily schedules overflowing, when one of the above situations occurs, you often struggle to cope. Not only do you feel stress, but those around you are also affected by the pressure on you.
If you start from an organized position, that stress is controlled. When you are starting from a disorganized place, you multiply the amount of related stress.
You are also better able to cope with disasters. No one likes to ponder all the negative occurrences that may arise. However you cannot read the papers without being beset by news of natural disasters affecting millions of people every year: earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, and tornadoes. At some point, no one is immune. Advance preparation can help to mitigate resultant trauma and frustration.
Many people claim they are creative and therefore organizing would restrict their creativity. Yet look at a painter’s tools and see how well organized those are, or study a fisherman’s tackle box. There is no job that does not benefit from being organized.
Reflect on the areas in your workday and in your life where becoming more organized would benefit you. Ask yourself, “What’s in it for me?”
Apply this question to each of your daily tasks. Some of your chores may not be specifically for you. You might be running errands for your spouse or participating in an activity with your children. However if the end result ties in with your long-term goals for family life or community involvement, then that is a benefit for you.
If you instead find that you have overextended yourself through volunteering or “being volunteered” and there is no direct benefit for you, it is a good time to reconsider your commitments. With so many worthy causes, you must be selective. Cull your To-Do list. Be sure your “yes’s” and “no’s” are aligned with your long-term goals.
Denise Landers
Key Organization Systems Inc.
Author of Destination Organization
productivity@keyorganization.com
Have you ever tried to “get organized” only to be frustrated after a day, or a week, or a month? Destination: Organization recognizes that reaching your organizing goals is a journey, not a one-time event, as you develop processes to cope with daily demands that constantly change. For help, call Denise at (281) 397-0015
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Each year we hear the same new year’s resolutions over and over again, “I’m going to exercise more this year” or “I’ll be nicer to my family this year” but sadly most of us drop these resolutions within the first ninety days of the year. One of the most popular resolutions that people make is to get organized. The National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) caught wind of this and named January “Get Organized Month” or “GO Month”. They started this initiative in 2003 to help people with organization and productivity. According to NAPO, the bulk of their clients request help with organizing their home offices. It’s safe to assume that clients are referring to paper clutter in the office. Paper Tiger Filing System Software is the perfect tool to get 2013 started off on the right foot if you were planning to be more organized this year.
- Efficient: Paper Tiger can help one file and organize all paper and digital files. Once you really catch on to the concept of indexing paper files and setting up locations in your database, you won’t know how you were able to organize without Paper Tiger. And since Paper Tiger isn’t just for paper, imagine all the other rooms of the house that you can organize. Paper Tiger’s basic concepts will help you master the software in a matter of minutes; bringing your organization troubles to an end, making it easy to keep your resolution for the entire year.
- Versatile: Paper Tiger not only helps you to organize and actually find paper files, but with Digital Tiger, powered by Google Docs, you can also find digital files! Using Google Docs as your digital file storage location, you can access scanned documents such as PDFs and also other types of documents. Google Docs gives users five gigabytes of storage free to store your digital files that you want in the cloud. Using Google Docs allows users to easily share digital files and even access them from mobile devices. Digital Tiger is a free add-on with a paid Paper Tiger Online Basic or Pro account for now, and is the function that connects your Paper Tiger Online account to your Google Docs/Google Drive account, then you will be able to search from Paper Tiger to find your paper/physical items that you’ve indexed into Paper Tiger’s database and your digital files that you’ve created, scanned or uploaded to Google Docs format through a Gmail or Google account.
- Practical: Paper Tiger may be one of the best investments ever as far as time is concerned. How much time do you think you waste on average looking for something? Each year people waste hours and entire days looking for something. Experts estimate that people waste 150 hours per year searching for lost items. Calculate your cost of disorganized here. A small investment in Paper Tiger will save not only time but also money. How many times have you paid a bill late because you lost it? Every time a document is filed and indexed into Paper Tiger, you can feel sure that you will be able to find it again quickly and easily. The days of trying to figure out where a document was left are over! With Paper Tiger’s search engine like feature, a few keywords will help you find exactly the document needed.
If organization was at the top of your New Year’s Resolution list, look no further; Paper Tiger is here to help. Its resourceful system will be so easy to use, it will be hard to stop organizing! The ability to organize both digital and paper files will not only clear up clutter on the desk but also inside the computer.
During this “Get Organized Month,” take advantage of the expertise of one of the productivity consultants that are Paper Tiger experts who can help you work more efficiently in every area of your life. They will work with you either virtually or in-person, whichever you need, and will help you to get organized and create a customized system for the way you work.
Finally, all the time and money wasted from disorganization will be returned on your simple investment in Paper Tiger, and you’ll be able to keep at least one new year’s resolution.
Time management does make us more efficient, but it also does so much more for us. It’s no secret that there are multiple reasons we choose to get organized. More often than not, we connect being organized with being successful and more efficient. The truth is, however, that one of the greatest benefits of being organized is time management. Time management helps us to:
-Be more focused
-Be less stressed
-Come across as more professional
-Be productive and meet deadlines
-Advance our businesses or careers
-Have more free time
Of course, good time management is important in both your professional and personal life. It helps us accomplish what we need to by the end of the day in order to begin the next day fresh and new. Above all, it enables us to have free time to spend with our friends, family and loved ones.
Using Paper Tiger Filing System Software for Document Management helps you with time management because you can always find what you need with little or no effort. This indexing system can be used to organize almost anything that is composed of multiple items, because anything that you can put a number onto, you can index into Paper Tiger. For example, you can use Paper Tiger to organize:
-Work documents
-Taxes
-Bills and expenses
-Family medical records
Of course, it is not just for paper filing and document management:
-Sports memorabilia
-Holiday decorations
-Book Collections
-DVDs, CDs, vinyl record albums, or other type of collections
-Storage Bins
These are just a few examples to give an idea of the wide variety of things Paper Tiger can help you organize. The possibilities are endless, and the potential to get organized will be so beneficial.
So how does Paper Tiger’s Indexing System fit into all of this?
For the ultimate utilization of time management through a filing system, you also need Paper Tiger. If you keep a filing system meant to have all of your collectibles for eBay organized, the software will help you actually track down exactly where certain collectibles are when you sell one. For example:
You have all of your eBay merchandise in storage bins stacked neatly in the garage. You have even started a filing system so that you know what merchandise you have. Paper Tiger will let you know what item is in what bin, including any possible alternate keywords for it. By doing this you or someone else will always be able to track a particular item down when it comes time to ship it to a buyer. Then you simply update your Paper Tiger database to indicate that it was shipped by inputting a note in the notes section for that item and maybe even transferring the item to an archive in the database to remove it from the active location. This way, you don’t waste time opening all of the bins trying to find that one item. Simply type in the search words and let the software direct you to the right location.
The storage bin example was one of many ways that Paper Tiger Filing System Software for Document Management can save you time while also being more efficient. Implementing and maintaining Paper Tiger’s database for everything that you need to get organized becomes the ultimate time management tool.
Whether you’re just starting a new business or you’ve been in business for years, you will always office organization. Often times, new gadgets come on the market that business owners get talked into purchasing, and these gadgets aren’t really useful in the long run, so money has been wasted. Then, there are other ideas that are helping business owners save heaps of money. One of these ideas is Paper Tiger Filing System Software for office organization, which is being used in companies of all sizes, ages and types. Employees won’t be wasting time searching for paper files when they could be doing things that are much more productive, thus saving companies money while increasing productivity.
Paper Tiger allows companies to maintain their paper files that they need to keep in hard copy format. Keep your paper in its original form (you do not have to scan it), but simply index your paper files into Paper Tiger’s database and use the power of the computer to quickly and easily find the information when you need it. Paper Tiger can index anything; it’s not just document management! Some things just can’t be scanned, i.e., passports, contracts, binders, books, CDs, DVDs, etc. That cannot be done with systems that require scanning into an electronic file. The beauty of Paper Tiger is that keywords allow everyone to find the document that might have been named many ways by many employees.
No matter how large or small a company, time management is a must. After all, when people are wasting time, they aren’t being productive, and the company is not making any money. Searching for files is a huge waste of time, especially when there is Paper Tiger to make the job faster and easier. The less time one has to spend searching for files, the more time can be spent doing things that are actually fruitful. The better you and your employees are at managing time, the more efficient your company. When documents are saved, various keywords are used, granting anyone who has permission easy access just by using certain keywords.
If you want to keep up with the times and make sure that your company is using the most modern paper management techniques, then you need Paper Tiger Filing System Software for office organization. Of all of the office supplies you pay for, this software is one of the most important. In addition, Paper Tiger will virtually return the investment when the time wasted is put towards working! Allow Paper Tiger to help with your office organization to cut back on time and keep your profits up where they should be.
This article by Michelle Panzlaff, and one of our Certified Paper Tiger Experts, challenges you to review your current system of organizing and offers some simple tips to evolve that system. Of course, Michelle also recommends using Paper Tiger Filing System Software for Document Management as a part of your organizing system to make your life easier.
To keep a system working well for you there is one key ingredient: ‘You’!
Keeping up your system just requires a few practical and simple ongoing behaviors. You must be consistent in your application and use, your information and projects need to be current and up to date, and you need to keep tasks in view by the appropriate context of when and where they need to be done.
Review these tips and your current ‘task and time management system’ to see if there is anything falling through the cracks that may call for an adjustment or two.
Keep your task reminders in one consistent place.
It might be on pieces of paper, sticky notes stuck to your screen, or in your PDA. It doesn’t matter where, it’s more important that it’s easy to use and you have access to it whenever you need it.
You may keep certain types of reminders on paper and certain others on your computer for example, and that’s ok, yet be as consistent as possible in defining those parameters and stay in the lines of what you have decided.
It’s far too confusing to have reminders about the same kinds of to-do’s in many different places. It makes processing of task items difficult as it hinders making fast choices and quickly putting things where they need to be before you are scheduled to act on them.
Consistency is not enough to keep a system running well. It also needs to be up to date.
Otherwise you won’t be able to trust that you have the most important stuff in front of you, and you may get caught up having to resort and re-evaluate everything you are managing.
This will put stress on your psyche as you look at your list and some part of you knows it’s not all there. You’ll end up not trusting your system, trying to keep stuff in your head again, and eventually lose the motivation to maintain your system all together.
Organize your action list by where the reminder needs to be seen in order to work on it, rather than by project.
Your projects should be kept together by topic, yet the reminders of the very next actions you need to perform need to be seen when and where those actions need to take place.
Keep your task reminders in such a way that you are likely to see them when you need to.
Original article posted at ‘Making Your Organizing System Work’
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Tidy Tiger Solutions
Michelle Panzlaff
To Michelle, serving as a Professional Organizer is all about creating more functional and enjoyable spaces, productive workflow and effective filing systems, while helping clients feel inspired and more productive.
As a skilled professional, Michelle now possesses over 23 years of office, service and administrative experience. Michelle relies on her exceptional skill set to solve complex challenges for her residential and business clients alike.
Phone: (778) 866-6942
Email: info@tidytiger.biz
This article from the blog of Denise Landers, founder and CEO of Key Organization Systems Inc. and a Paper Tiger Expert, is helpful as it relays a few tips to us on storing electronic files. With an effective filing system in place, finding electronic files are an easy task. Denise also suggests Paper Tiger Filing System Software and Document Management for your paper files and proficient organizing.
Just because paper is becoming less of an issue for filing does not mean that a good filing system is unnecessary. You may now store electronic files instead of paper files, and these also need to be organized for quick searches. A few simple tips can be really useful in managing your electronic or digital files efficiently. We’ve also provided additional helpful hints within Denise’s article as it relates to how Paper Tiger and/or Google Drive might assist you in managing your electronic digital files.
Save and place your digital documents in one place, preferably in the My Documents/Documents folder. All of your text files, spreadsheets and presentations should go in one main folder. Note: if you use Gmail, you can now download Google Drive as a folder to your harddrive that will synchronize everything between this folder on your harddrive and your Google Drive location in the cloud from your Gmail account.
My Documents is like a closet where you need to have various drawers and sections to categorize or arrange things. Creating subfolders will act like drawers of that closet. Choose meaningful names for these. As a simple example, if you have a main folder with a name “Reports”, make subfolders with “2010”, “2011”, and “2012” for quicker searching. These subfolders can also contain more subfolders. Note: You can do the same thing with your Google Drive folder from your Gmail account.
If you start some with dates, then continue that practice. If they all relate to a specific project, you might put the project names or initials at the beginning of the name.
Your file names must be specific and so relevant that you can tell what is in the file without opening it. For instance, if it is an invoice to a company named ABC sent on Oct 2, the file name could be “invoice1012abc”. Giving generic names like “invoice” will make it extremely difficult for you to track and use it for the next time. As above, relating to consistency, you might start all invoice files with that word before adding more description. Note: When creating or uploading a scanned or other digital file to Google Drive, you can choose to have it converted to Google Docs format which will OCR up to 10 pages, which will allow you to search for words throughout your digital files.
It is wiser to make a habit of saving your file in the right place at the time of its creation instead of storing it on your desktop for quick access now. The desktop ends up becoming cluttered and another task to clear off later. When you have faith in your filing system, you won’t worry about keeping on the desktop to be sure of finding it.
If there are some files which you use often, force them to arrange on the top. You can add an asterisk or other symbol that will keep them above the other files. When you know longer need this file on a regular basis, take off the symbol so that it drops down to alphabetical order.
Plan for a time annually where you clean up your files. Get rid of the ones that are no longer pertinent.
Periodically it is smart to create backups of all your files. You might consider both local storage devices and an automatic online process.
Keeping your business documents organized is another step to a success. Windows has strong search features to find your files in the system, but if your file name is too generic, even the search feature will not be helpful.
The ideas for this guest post were contributed by Lewis Edward, one of the owners of The Office Providers.
Denise Landers
Key Organization Systems Inc.
Author of Destination Organization
productivity@keyorganization.com
Have you ever tried to “get organized” only to be frustrated after a day, or a week, or a month? Destination: Organization recognizes that reaching your organizing goals is a journey, not a one-time event, as you develop processes to cope with daily demands that constantly change. For help, call Denise at (281) 397-0015
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During this webinar, Anne discussed the basic concept of Paper Tiger to organize both paper files and other physical items of which you need to keep track so that you can find them when you need them, and the concept of Digital Tiger, powered by Google Docs to organize and find your digital files. She demonstrated how to use Digital Tiger more effectively for digital filing, in addition to the following to show how to use Paper Tiger with Digital Tiger, so you can get organized and be more productive.
Find Anything In Your Office In 5 Seconds or Less…Guaranteed! Watch the webinar to learn more.
As information, Anne is a professional speaker, productivity expert, professional organizer and author. If you want to learn more about Anne and her services, please visit her website at www.StrategizeAndOrganize.com.
She may be in Colorado (and sometimes in Arizona!), but she’s nationally recognized as an expert and works with people throughout the US in person and virtually.
You can contact Anne at amcgurty@strategizeandorganize.com or by phone at 303 881-0174.
See more information here on Paper Tiger Filing System Software for Document Management
Q: How do you start when all of your files are in drawers and on your desk? It would be helpful to have ideas for where to start – baby steps.
A: We always recommend starting with the files on your desk to get your desk cleared. If you already have files set up, you might start with the drawers in your desk and index each file. We recommend starting with naming your Paper Tiger locations as Action Files, Reference Files, Archive Files. Then you can add other types of files later, such as Binders, Books, CDs, DVDs, etc. Locations could also be an actual physical location, such as File Room, Library, Garage, Basement, Storage, etc. Please take a look at this blog post that we created to help those needing a little guidance that you might find helpful: Customize Your Filing System with Paper Tiger’s Indexing Method
Q: Is there any way to search all of your databases or can you only search them individually?
A: You can only search within the individual database that you’re in at the time. You cannot search across all of your databases. Having different databases is only advantageous if you want to keep different filing systems separate and do not want to search for all files in all databases at one time. For example, if you have an Office database and a Home database, you do not want items to pop up from your Office database when conducting a search for an item in your Home database.
Q: I have several “side jobs” for non profits etc. Do you recommend setting up locations for each type of side job? For example, I have several clients that I work for from home. Should I set up a location for each client? Perhaps it depends on what the physical location is?
A: It does depend on how you want these filed, but think about if you need to have a location for each client. Do you have several manilla folders for each client or do you simply have 1 hanging file folder per client? If you only have 1 hanging file folder per client, create a location named Clients, then 1 item per client. However, if you have several manilla folders for each client, and you don’t want to itemize each manilla folder into 1 item, then you might consider naming a location per client. In this latter case, you might only have 5-10 items in each location, but it would give you more flexibility in differentiating between clients.
Q: If I use the cloud version, vs the desktop version, I could access from multiple PC’s, is that right? e.g. access from home and work
A: Yes, you would be able to sign in from wherever you are with an Internet connection. Paper Tiger Online works on any computer with an Internet access including Mac.
Q: Where do I find the area to change the setting to include digital search? I checked database preferences, but it doesn’t give me that option.
A: You will first need to connect Paper Tiger to your Google account. From the Dashboard, click on the Accounts tab, then find the option to Connect to Google Docs. Please see this blog post that has step by step instructions that you might find helpful: http://www.thepapertiger.com/blog/started-digital-tiger-paper-digital-filing-solution/
Q: Can I attach a picture to an item, specifically, I want to inventory fabric for a small sewing business, pictures or links to pictures in the notes would be helpful.
A: Paper Tiger is an indexing system, and doesn’t allow you to attach an electronic file, however you would be able to upload the picture to Google Drive and title that digital file with keywords. Then with your Paper Tiger Online account connected to your Google account, you would be able to search from Paper Tiger Online and search results will return for both your physical items that you’ve indexed into Paper Tiger and your digital items that you have in your Google Drive. You can also paste the link into the Notes section if you like, however it will not be hyperlink, but you can copy from there if you wish later.
