The bottom line for me as an entrepreneur is that using the Paper Tiger Filing System Software significantly reduces the amount of stress and anxiety in my life. When I discovered Paper Tiger, I discovered what it was that prevented me from filing papers away in a timely manner. You see, I’m a perfectionist, and every time I would sit down to do some filing, I was faced with the prospect of having to come up with the “right” way to label a file folder. Let’s say I wanted to file sales literature about a CRM company called Salesforce.com. Should I file it under the name of the company? Should I file it under CRM (Customer Relationship Management), which is the category name for this product, as a subject file? Should I file it under Sales and Marketing for my company, which is what I would use the product for, as a subject file? And where was the other information I had collected about this company? Because the real goal of filing is fast retrieval, I worried that the label name I came up with would not be the label name I remembered when it came time to pull this information out of the file to review it. That made me anxious, and it made me dread filing, so I rarely did it. And I lived in the midst of stacks of paper, unable to find what I needed when I needed it. Oh, the time I wasted looking for stuff I needed at the last minute!
Now I don’t feel any pressure to come up with the perfect name for my paper files. First, I can quickly and easily find out if there is any similar information I’ve already filed by using the search bar to look for CRM, Salesforce.com, Sales, Marketing, or other related terms. If there are already files I’d like to file it with, I can quickly do so by entering the any additional keywords relating to the new document going into the file, and then placing it into the hanging folder. If not, all I have to do is create a new file–perhaps with a general term like CRM–and add all of the keywords that I think I’d use to refer to it later, and I’m done. This little software program has had a profound impact on the quality of my life.
Michele Engel
President & CEO
Insightrak
Tags: document management software, paper filing systems, Productivity, The Paper Tiger 'Finding' Filing System, what to do with paper files
I too have the same problem! I have just discovered this software and we are in the process of implementing it. I look forward to the day I can just do a search on the database and find the information in a blink! Perfection is such an elusive thing, but I think this will help move me that little closer
You hit it exactly! I also had that problem. At work it took me a long time to get the program implemented for my office, but it was terrific. I even knew what I had in the long-term storage unit and when I should have it sent to be destroyed! Most of the time I didn’t even have to go to the storage. I just handed maintenance a list and I had for years already made it a habit to put a discard date on boxes. Now I’m retired and I use Paper Tiger at home. It streamlined things for me here too.