With the trend moving towards making the home free from clutter, it can seem like it is still a bit of a confusing and overwhelming task. Keep in mind, the first part of the task is dividing up what you are keeping, what you can sell and what you should get ready to be donated, or what needs to be tossed or recycled. The next step is taking what you need to keep and giving it a “value.”
The value of your items is usually split up in the following categories:
If the point of the project is to try to stop collecting clutter, make sure category number three has as few items as possible. Of course, we all realize there are certain items that fall into the last category that must be kept. Now the trick is how to keep everything neat, organized and put away so that you and everyone in your family can find something if they need it.
One of the main reasons that homes get in a state of disorganization is that no one can figure out where anything is or where it goes. You leave an item out because you know if you put it away, you will never find it when you need it. Or someone in your household doesn’t put something away because they have no idea where “away” should be.
Implementing Paper Tiger Filing System Software for document management that will allow you to index items, not just your paper files, is a great way to put an end to this vicious cycle that is keeping the average household cluttered. The best part is that once you have it in place, anyone in your home can use the system to find what they need when they need it, as well as know exactly where to return it once they are finished with it. The great news is everyone in the family doesn’t have to be in agreement for what exactly to name each item in the new filing system.
Let’s imagine you already have this system set up so you can see how easy it is to use. You need to find where exactly you have your antique silverware set because you’ve decided to host a fancy dinner party. By entering the search term “antique silver”, your filing system will give you results the same way an online keyword search would. The search results lets you know it is in the large plastic storage bin marked #3 and that this bin is in the garage.
If you set up your filing system with alternate keywords, anyone using the system can find the same thing. So if you send your husband to look and he types in “grandma’s silver,” or your daughter searches for “silverware,” everyone will still get the same answer and find the item. Not only that, but when it is time to put the item back, you can conduct a search in the database to find where that item goes so it always gets put back in its proper place. Avoid the confusion your household goes through when trying to organize clutter with the simple use of a filing system.
So you’ve sorted the items you are keeping and it’s time to decide a home for each item. Decide how you want to organize the items you plan to keep, then by indexing them into your filing system software, you’ll be able to retrieve them when you need them. An indexing system is a way for you to catalog all the items you put into a bin or box by adding all relating keywords for each item into the software database, and then when you need to find an item later, you conduct a keyword search and you’ll know where that item is located quickly and easily based on the information you’ve input previously.
For the example above with locating your silverware, you’ve stored your silverware in bin #3 along with other relevant items that you might need when you need your silverware, such as a lace tablecloth, napkin rings, candelabra, etc.
In Paper Tiger’s database, you might have a ‘Location’ named Garage. In this Garage Location, you would number your storage containers and enter the content information into your filing system to match each container. You might list your items such as in the example below, and of course, mark each bin to match the item number in Paper Tiger’s database:
Item # 1 in Paper Tiger’s database, Item Name: Bin #1, Keywords: Spring decorations, spring flag, bunnies, tablecloth and picnic items.
Item # 2 in Paper Tiger’s database would match contents in your bin #2, Item Name: Bin #2, Keywords: might be Crafts, including the different colors of paper you have, types of paper (card stock, construction), and instructions for different projects, etc. You might also have other crafts in this bin that you could list.
Item # 3 in Paper Tiger’s database, Item Name: Bin #3, Keywords: silver, silverware, antique, vintage, grandma’s silver, lace tablecloth, candelabra, silver cleaner
Item # 4 in Paper Tiger’s database, Item Name: Box #4, Keywords: toys, spiderman, etchasketch, Mr. Potato Head, Operation game
Item # 5 in Paper Tiger’s database, Item Name: Box #5, Keywords: kitchen items, old crock pot, blender, extra bowls, mismatched plates
Later you can search for “silver” in Paper Tiger’s database the same way you type keywords to search the Internet on Google. Your indexing system will bring back search results that tell you what bin number the item is in and even where the bin is, and you’ll be able to see what other contents you’ve listed and put in that bin.
Below is another example for your CD’s, and can be used to implement the same concept for your books or any other physical item that you can put a number onto:
1. Name a Location CDs, with capacity of 100 (you can increase this later if you need to) Then print labels for the 100 items ready to affix onto each CD as you index it.
2. Begin indexing your CDs individually by adding a new item in this Location. I would name the item by the name of the movie or topic or singer of the CD, and continue with something like the following:
-Item Name: (name of the movie or topic or singer of the CD)
-Keywords: (actors/speakers, length, rating, brief description)
-If you have Professional or Pro edition, you will be able to apply a Category to the item. If so, add new category for either drama, fiction, comedy, historical, etc. (as info, the Basic edition does not have the Category function) If you have Basic, then you can add the category to the keywords section as well, then when you search for a specific category, Paper Tiger will bring up all of the CDs that you’ve indexed with that category, which is basically the same thing that would happen if you were to select the Category drop down box in Professional or Pro.
3. As you index each CD, affix the corresponding label to it and store in your new place. As you’ll see in this picture below, both the CD and the CD jacket are numbered so when you search Paper Tiger, you can go to the corresponding CD jacket number, and you’ll also know to match the numbers when replacing the CD.
Then obviously, you can go through the stacks of paper files, and index them into Paper Tiger as well. Index the contents of each hanging file folder in your file cabinet, so when you need to reference your insurance file, you’ll know exactly what file it is in without having to worry if you filed it under Insurance, Household, or the insurance company name.
So you see how implementing Paper Tiger Filing System Software for document management can help you get organized and it is a filing system the whole family can use to keep the clutter and chaos to a minimum for organized living!
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. When is the last time you organized your entire home office (besides when you initially moved in)? If you can’t answer this question, it’s time. With clutter on the kitchen counter, dining room table and other areas of the house, this article in particular is designated to getting the home office organized.
Sometimes this isn’t a task that can be tackled in one day, but with Paper Tiger Filing System Software for document management, these tips can help you make huge strides.
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, and once you have your Paper Tiger database set up with your paper files indexed, you can print the File Clean-Out report 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 the documents in your hanging file folders match what you have in Paper Tiger.
These are steps to help you get started. Of course, depending on how cluttered your home office is, it might be quite difficult to clean out your 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 less time than you think. Remember to relax and take your time when cleaning your office. Don’t get overwhelmed in organizing your home office. You’ll feel so accomplished and proud, you will want to go from room to room, and maybe even tackle organizing the garage. Happy Organizing!
In the article below, Anne McGurty, a Paper Tiger Expert of Strategize and Organize, relays the benefits of getting organized. Think of it as a small investment in the long-term events of your future. Do you think it’s a waste of time to get organized? Read on to see the benefits of being organized. She also recommends implementing Paper Tiger Filing System Software to help you save time and money!
Are you ready to get organized, but stalling because of a lack of time, money, or motivation? Don’t despair! A professional organizer is just what you need! Make an investment in yourself that will provide amazing advantages for years to come.
Here are some of the benefits you can look forward to once you get organized:
Once you get organized, you’ll know what you already own, eliminating the need to buy duplicate items. You’ll also be able to buy what you need when it’s on sale, rather than buying at the last minute. Your professional organizer can also help you find the perfect organizing products for your space and lifestyle, so you can stop wasting money on containers that just don’t work.
A professional organizer can create order and structure out of chaos. You’ll receive systems that work for your dominant learning style, your lifestyle, your needs, your challenges, and your dreams. Whether at work or at home, you’ll increase productivity once you have an organized and efficient schedule to keep you on track. You’ll be amazed at how much you get done in shorter amounts of time. And by focusing on your priorities and goals, you’ll be able to finally move ahead toward reaching them.
Once your home or office is neat and tidy, you won’t feel embarrassed to have guests visit. The guilt will fade away as you take pride in your surroundings. Your organized office will allow you to present a professional image to co-workers, clients, and superiors. Your organized home and new-found habits to keep it that way will set a great example for your children and/or spouse.
Physical and emotional clutter obscures your surroundings. A clutter-free environment is simply easier to manage. A professional organizer can help you clear out your space so you can see that your surroundings in a better light and easier to maintain.
When you can find what you need, are on top of your to-dos, and arrive on time for meetings or events, you’ll feel calmer and have more peace of mind. No more feeling overwhelmed by life — you’ll be in more control and feel less stressed.
When you’re organized, your days go as planned, and you get a lot done. That leaves more time to indulge in a little “me time.”
Clutter is a mask. A professional organizer can help you take off that mask and let people see your vibrancy! Once the clutter is removed, you can showcase your talents, skills, and personality and have the life you deserve.
About Anne McGurty
Anne McGurty is CEO of Strategize & Organize, a company devoted to training individual’s to be more effective with the tools and resources to be productive in their work environment.
If you like this issue, you’ll love Anne’s transforming productivity training and organizing products to help you organize your business — and yourself — ranging from productivity consulting for individuals and executives to small business coaching programs to keynote speaking and corporate training programs to improve efficiencies in the workplace and improve productivity.
While Anne is best known for her expertise in productivity and expert office organizing, her clients share that her biggest impact comes from her philosophy of “personalizing her programs to fit the needs of her clients so they can streamline more efficiently with existing processes” – ensuring to create a sustainable work environment. This, Anne says, is the most important key to bringing an individual to personal freedom with time and organization.
You can learn more about Anne at www.StrategizeAndOrganize.com.
You can contact Anne at amcgurty@strategizeandorganize.com or by phone at 303 881-0174.
Are you being as productive as you can? Want to reach your full potential? Anne McGurty of Strategize & Organize and one of our Certified Paper Tiger Experts, offers a few tips to help you reach your full potential of productivity. A few of these tips, when combined with Paper Tiger Filing System Software can help elevate productivity even more.
About Anne McGurty:
Anne McGurty is CEO of Strategize & Organize, a company devoted to training individual’s to be more effective with the tools and resources so they can be productive in their work environment.
If you like this issue, you’ll love Anne’s transforming productivity training and organizing products to help you organize your business — and yourself — ranging from productivity consulting for individuals and executives to small business coaching programs to keynote speaking and corporate training programs to improve efficiencies in the workplace and improve productivity.
While Anne is best known for her expertise in productivity and expert office organizing, her clients share that her biggest impact comes from her philosophy of “personalizing her programs to fit the needs of her clients so they can streamline more efficiently with existing processes” – ensuring to create a sustainable work environment. This, Anne says, is the most important key to bringing an individual to personal freedom with time and organization.
You can learn more about Anne at www.StrategizeAndOrganize.com.
You can contact Anne at amcgurty@strategizeandorganize.com or by phone at 303 881-0174.
No matter what size business you have, you need to organize your business inventory to make things run efficiently. Even if your inventory merely consists of collectibles to be sold on EBay as a hobby, things should be in order to strive towards greater success. Attempting to locate an item to ship to a customer can be so much easier with indexed inventory.
Organizing also helps to track the amount of inventory you have for easy reordering decisions. Whether it’s the papers and receipts that make up the office end of the business or the inventory that is the reason you have the business, Paper Tiger Filing System Software is the first step towards getting organized for neat inventory.
Paper Tiger is a tool for cataloging and organizing anything that can be numbered. You can use it to keep even better track of the files in your filing cabinet or for the inventory of your store or online business. Whether you are selling vintage clothing or fancy costume jewelry, Paper Tiger can keep track of what you have and where it is located.
Simply type in any and all keywords you can think of for the items. This way it doesn’t matter if you can’t remember exactly what you named it, a Google-like search in the database can still help you find it. Unlike the plain alphabetical filing system, Paper Tiger makes it so that neither you nor your employees have to guess how an object may have been labeled when entered in the system. Anyone who has access to the inventory indexing can search any of the keywords and find things with ease. For example, if you are organizing costume jewelry you may have a bin of brooches, necklaces, and hatpins. You can separate the three types of jewelry and set a location while adding each to the location. In addition, keywords will help you find the “diamond brooch” or those “chandelier-like earrings”.
Organization is a major issue that many businesses face, both large and small. Keeping track of inventory is often affected when organization isn’t in place. This can be frustrating for you, staff members and most importantly customers. Not being able to locate an item a customer ordered or not knowing when it is time to reorder a popular selling item can lead to lost sales. Aside from all of this, you or employees trying to locate an item or taking count of items to find out if it is time to reorder something can waste countless hours.
Good organization paired with Paper Tiger Filing System Software is more than for just your business. Carry this over into your office or personal home space too. For example, keep your office supplies documented in this manner and you will never have that frustrating and frantic search for extra pens or printer paper again. Set yourself up to be organized in every aspect of your professional and personal life, and you can practically guarantee you will be a success.
Here at Paper Tiger, we’ve figured out that organization also comes from within, and we believe that you can train yourself to be more organized. Before you begin to use Paper Tiger Filing System Software for Document Management or Digital Tiger, powered by Google Docs, you, try these ten tips that will help you form habits towards a more organized you.
Earth Day is Monday, April 22nd, and each year individuals across the globe participate in events geared towards environmental protection. Wouldn’t you like to get involved?
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), each year in the United States, Americans use about 71 million tons of paper and paperboard. Many organizations and individuals are making an effort to go paperless. A paperless environment is certainly good for the Earth as the amount of waste in the landfill is reduced in addition to greenhouse gas emissions and the energy used by printers.
Whether you are trying to go paperless or not, most of us still have some paper files, but we can still work toward less paper. Here are a few tips to help you be more environmental, and don’t forget to index the hard copy paper files into Paper Tiger filing system software for document management, so that when you need to retrieve a document, you can find it without having to print it again.
Here are just a few benefits of using Google Docs/Drive that can help you participate in Earth Day this year.
-Google Docs allows you to access your word processed files, spreadsheets and presentations. You can easily share these files with others. You can edit and work on these documents in the same location they are stored in. This can all be done without ever having a physical sheet of paper. The only time physical documents are involved is if you must first scan them into Google Docs. Sometimes you might need a hard copy in file, but also an electronic file. Using Digital Tiger, powered by Google Docs, function in Paper Tiger Online Basic or Pro plan, will allow you to index the physical paper file into Paper Tiger and also search Google Docs for the digital file.
-Google Docs has one of the cheapest digital file storage available. This means you can create and store all of your files digitally without physical paper clutter while also saving valuable space on your hard drive.
-Worried about the safety of your documents? While Google Docs is very secure, you have the option to send automated backups to your computer and also synchronize through Google Drive.
You can easily do your part to reduce your paper footprint by rethinking how you work with paper files and digital files. These tips can help you do your part in keeping the environment healthy. Whether you have digital files or hard copy paper files, you can easily do your part by reducing paper use for Earth Day.
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!
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
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.
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.
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.
Moving can be an exciting but stressful event when you’re trying to organize your moving boxes. It doesn’t matter if you are moving down the street or across the globe. Whether you are moving your residential space or your office space or business, packing everything and relocating can be a daunting task. Even simple decisions such as what to pack and when can create confusion. Pack too early and you may need to still use something but will not be able to find it. Pack too late and your move will be a disorganized disaster.
The best approach to take is to go ahead and pack early, but use Paper Tiger Filing System Software to keep yourself organized. Should you need to retrieve something that has already been packed or even find something after the move, you’ll be able to locate it. In addition, Paper Tiger filing system software for document management can be a great start to implement organization in your new office or home.
Here is an idea of how to make Paper Tiger work for your move:
Print an item list report to have handy if there is no computer or Internet available right away. When you arrive at your new home, office or business location, you may need something right away. Leave behind the frustrations of trying to read what was once scribbled for the contents of a box or opening each one until you track it down; there is an easier way!
You simply use the search function in the database or look on the item list report that you printed to determine which box number the item is in, and retrieve it. Gone are the countless hours spent opening boxes and dumping out contents, saving you from taking more time and making your new space disorganized. Implement Paper Tiger in your new space too. For example, in your office you can use this to keep track of all your paper files. In your home, you can use it to keep some items still boxed up but in the garage. However you choose to use Paper Tiger Filing System Software and Document Management when organizing your moving boxes, you will be able to stop disorganization in its tracks before it can follow you to your new place!